Wake up, Ikari!
by The Mustachioed Cat
Summary: This life doesn't seem like a dream or anything. It isn't perfect, you know? But he thinks himself awake. Aware. He has no idea what is coming.
1. T minus 29

**Wake up, Ikari!**

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* * *

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T minus 29

* * *

_Gray Flowers._ Shinji Ikari typed it blind, staring up at the ceiling. Trying to plot it out in his head.

_Grayflowers?_ No. Too romanji. Hip, Kensuke would call it. He deleted the non-word.

_Seiji Takora will always love his wife._ Maybe too heavy? And King got away with the infrequent journalistic present-tense, but opening with it? Something that hints the end? It could work. Of course she's going to die. That's the point.

The boy's fingers tapped over the keyboard. _They had married on a bright, clear day in early March. Him in a black family kimono, Naoko in a simple white gown. _

Okay. Sweet, simple image. Now what?

The window was open, and a breeze pushed through the room, smelling of grass and the lake and... Shinji's eyes closed. And rot. It was late Spring, but a cold rain had passed through less than an hour ago, and the air that wafted through the window was chilled and wet. It was easy to imagine Summer bleeding into Autumn, and that outside the leaves were turning, falling, rotting damp on the ground.

Leaves turning bright colors, becoming something remarkable and different, right before they fell. There was something to that. _They diagnosed the cancer two months later_. He typed it fast, following the impulse.

He pictured a healthy Naoko, even though there wasn't space for her just yet. He could spend a whole chapter contrasting wedding-day Naoko and the thing she eventually became. Healthy was too easy a start. So he took that image of Naoko in a wedding gown, and went the other way with it:

_He would never forget how she looked the morning the last of her hair fell out. Stormy blue eyes sunken into bruised sockets, she cried, tears running down her puffy face. She had not taken the guard (guard=mouthguard. Prescribed. Pain makes her grind teeth at night) out yet, and her sobs had been muffled, like she was a child (gasping for air?) and far away. It was hard to remember the Naoko that had come before, the one he had married._

The young would-be writer surveyed these first few sentences. Painful, but it seemed an honest start. Plenty of space to pad. He could always shift things around.

_Today is also bright and sunny, and Seiji is again in his black family kimono, but instead of a yard-shrine in Kyoto, he is standing at the desk of a crematorium in Yokohama. Naoko is not by his side, but in front of him, in the small ceramic urn he signs for. Her final resting place is a deep red - her favorite color - and has a picture of her printed on the front._

Now Shinji tried to picture Takora. Imagined a salaryman in his mid twenties in a too-large kimono. Black hair atop a cold, unremarkable face. What would be in his expression? He loves her, he'll always love her. He's holding her ashes in his hands. Emptiness, probably. Hollow. Vacant. Not very interesting. If Shinji described that, the reader would think Seiji was _stoic_ or something. Better to leave the specific out for now.

_Seiji Takora will always love his wife. But she made it a difficult thing, at the end,_

There! His breathing sped up. Something had clicked. Something was coming. He didn't care how terribly cheap it was going to sound.

_as her mind decayed and her body fell apart, (too many fall-apart synonyms?) (too general? Details? Too early?) while the tumors in her brain that caused her such pain (brain/pain rhyme -note) bloomed, like gray flowers (grayflowers?)._

Shinji got up and paced the room for a minute, working off the extra energy. Bad move getting so worked up, it was already... he looked at the clock on his dresser. 1:40 AM. He had promised himself ten minutes of writing time after homework. That was part of Asuka's little _challenge_, after all. Ten minutes a day for a solid month. Better have at least a chapter done at the end. Shinji had technically lost the challenge already, since his ten minutes had started well after midnight, but Asuka didn't need to know that.

That stupid aptitude test. He just had to have gone and gotten a higher mark than her in Composition. Nevermind that she was at the top every other category. Composition had been enough to make it personal.

Shinji saved the nascent chapter and began to shut down the laptop. Stopped, went back, put a password on the document. He did not want anyone to see this. Especially Asuka. Not something so rough.

As the laptop shut down, Shinji stripped to his boxers and undershirt, dry-swallowed half a tablet of melatonin, and crawled beneath his thin bed-covers. The breeze drifting through the open window was cold and pleasant.

He did not bother to set an alarm for the following morning.

* * *

Ikari. The voice came from far away. Maybe underwater.

"Ikari." A new distance. Something familiar. Downthehall.

A bang as his door slid open. Shinji groaned, tightened into a ball. He was just dreaming this. He still had another few hours of blissful, sweet...

"Ikari! Wake up, dammit!" footsteps to his bed. The covers were yanked off. Footsteps to the window but, ah-hah, the window is already open.

The window slammed shut.

"I'm up," Shinji lied, crouching face-down into his pillow, his whole body in a roll, rebelling at the concept. His skin was damp. Felt good in the air, drying. No more footsteps. Must have been a dream. He could just go back to sleep and...

"I'm coming back with water, Shinji," came a soft, dangerous promise. Footsteps out the door. Shit.

"Shit," he muttered. She would do it. She had done it before.

He scraped his face against the pillow a few times, then rolled out of bed and onto his feet. Groggy. Everything blurred. He picked up a pair of uniform pants. Sniffed and discarded them. He repeated the process three times, got impatient, took his last clean pair from the closet. The shirt over the back of the chair at his desk was still pretty clean. He'd just worn it the last two days. That and deodorant and a stick of mint gum, and he was just pulling on a second black sock when Asuka marched in with a glass of water.

"Good," she said. "Now..." she stopped. Took a step closer. Sniffed audibly. "Your undershirt stinks."

She went downstairs, to give him a bit of privacy.

* * *

The door to his parents' room was open. Dad had gone to work already, if he had ever made it home. As Shinji passed through the empty kitchen, two pieces of hot toast popped out of the toaster. Asuka showing off. He snatched one up and joined her on the front step, locking the door behind himself. Asuka made a show of replacing the emergency key she had used to gain entry under a nearby planter's rock, and they set off for school.

With mom off to Kyoto for the week and dad doing crunch-work at the firm, Shinji had thought he'd have the house to himself. It had been a nasty shock to find Asuka in the kitchen Monday morning, reading the newspaper and munching on a toast covered in raspberry jam. Shinji had assumed, by some diseased and horribly flawed bit of logic, that if his parents were not around to let Asuka into the house, the red-head would not be able to enter - that his long-time friend would break a habit of nearly two years and fail to come to his house on the way to school and terrorize him out of bed simply because there was no one around to unlock the front door.

It was an awkward situation, really. As close as the Sohryu and Ikari families were, and as well as mom got on with Asuka, having the girl let herself in was really, well... it was rude. And Asuka was too damn smart not to know that.

He could have stopped it. Could have mentioned it in passing to mom when she called to check up on him. And then mom would have talked to Mrs. Sohryu, probably using the "teaching Shinji responsibility" pretext to request Asuka stay out of the house - because they all knew Shinji was the one that needed a lesson in responsibility. Yeah, mom would say that, while she and dad appreciated "little Asuka" looking after their only son, it was time he learned to do things for himself. This conversation between mothers would have been friendly and social. Maybe in the course of discussion plans for a two-family dinner would evolve. Then Mrs. Sohryu would have talked to Asuka, and the red-head would have stop coming over until, at least, Shinji's parents got back. But...

But maybe she wouldn't ever come back, once he tried blocking her out.

Their friendship was a strange thing. The slavish daily routine, the barbed conversation. Shinji worried that if he disrupted that routine, it would never reform. That Asuka would decide he was not worth the trouble. And she was too ingrained in his life, too much of a constant, for him to want that.

* * *

Shinji and Asuka had grown up together. The story went that they had met in the day-care, back when his family and her family all worked at the same firm. They had stood out from the six other children in the play-pen because Asuka, three months younger than Shinji and barely a toddler, had taken to ordering him around. The staff found that adorable enough to bring to their parents' attention. From there, what mom remembered as "play-dates" had been arranged, and when one family had crunch-work or business trips, the other family would look after both children.

It had been a little awkward because Mr. Sohryu was, at the time, dad's immediate superior. They had to keep things quiet. The firm had been in the middle of a long fall, and the management was exercising any pretext to fire someone. Even if the only evidence of, say, favoritism, was the play of two children. That little secret had firmly cemented the relationship between the Ikari and Sohryu families.

The earliest memory Shinji had was looking up a steep incline from ground-level and seeing a five-year-old Asuka at the top, yelling for help. He had wanted to go down the slope because, as mom put it, he had thought it was faster than walking ten feet to the sturdy and enclosed flight of stairs so thoughtfully provided by the city planning board. Asuka had been afraid, so he had gone first to show her she was being silly, and ended up ass-over-elbows.

That was how things tended to end up. So it was little surprise when Asuka began to outstrip him scholastically. Even less of a surprise when they began to grow apart around the 6th Grade, upon the conclusion of their first standardized test. _There_ was a shameful memory: of walking up to a poster the teacher had put up, wondering what it was, seeing Asuka's name at the top, and his name... well, it had been unacceptably close to the bottom.

After that, everyone had gotten really excited about Asuka. She was placed in some weird after-school prep program, while Shinji tried to scrape together a decent grade so he wouldn't be held back.

Really, that could have been the end of it. Because Shinji had resented Asuka. Resented how she seemed to _like_ learning, how she didn't treat school like it was unpleasant and compulsory. By the end of 6th Grade, he had started to actively avoid Asuka... though mostly to mask the fact that she seemed to be actively avoiding _him. _And, yeah, that could have been the end of it. With Middle School coming on, it would have been the easiest thing in the world for both of them to show up on the first day and simply decide they did not know one another. That was certainly how things seemed set to turn out.

And then Shinji had gone and failed his final Elementary School exam.

In the present day, on his way to school and four years distant from the event, Shinji shuddered. He had failed to graduate the 6th Grade. Because he had been a little idiot who hated school and thought it didn't matter because he was going to grow up and be _Getter Robo_ anyway. A 11-year-old acting like he was 8. Present-day Shinji had no idea how it had gotten so bad.

When he left the Elementary School on the last day of spring session, Shinji had been openly bawling. The teacher had kept him after to explain things to him. How he would have to retake the stupid test or repeat the year. But taking the test again wouldn't matter, the 11-year-old Shinji knew, because it was unfair and impossible to pass. So... no Middle School. Dad was going to hit him. Mom would cry.

The teacher had enumerated each of Shinji's failings as a student, going over each test and piece of homework. It had taken about an hour - long enough for the student entrance to be mostly deserted by the time Shinji got there, so he hadn't bothered to hide his tear-streaked face. He was so angry and ashamed, he failed to notice little Asuka sitting on the cinderblock retaining wall that hemmed in the side of the playground facing the street. When she called out to him, he had almost - almost - ran away. Because she was perfect. Because mom and dad wished she had gone to them, and the Sohryu's had gotten stuck with the retard.

All she said was his name. There hadn't been a tone to it or anything, but once Shinji had suppressed his instinct to flee, he had turn around and shouted "What do you want?"

Asuka was eating a blue Popsicle. The smart kids got treats. Her lips were purple. She had looked down at him as though from a far greater height, and asked him why he was crying.

That look, that _condescension. _It had made him angry. Furious. But not at her. Somehow, even back then, before he really knew how to live, Shinji Ikari had managed to take Asuka's look and turn it on himself.

Where it belonged.

It took him a while to answer her, because he had suddenly realized that all the rage that had been building up inside him, at the stupid teacher, at his parents, at the impossible test... really, he should be mad at _himself_. And that had made him cry harder. By the time he was in a state to answer Asuka, she was almost done with her Popsicle.

"Because... I'm... _stupid_!" he hitched, scraping his knuckles painfully down the face of the cinderblock wall she sat on. "The teacher says I have to take the year over."

Asuka ate the last of her frozen treat. Put the stick into her bag. Then she said: "You aren't stupid, Shinji."

That had not helped. Lots of people said that. His parents. The teacher.

"Y-yeah," he had responded, dragging his knuckles down the wall again. "I think. I think I am."

"Nope," Asuka hopped off the wall, landing neatly. "You're just trying to excuse your failure."

That was how 10-year-old Asuka actually talked.

"I tried!" Shinji insisted, knowing it was a lie, knowing he was just creating self-satisfying drama, though of course he didn't frame it with that term. "I tried and it wasn't good enough." He scrapped his knuckles down the wall a third time, and saw Asuka go pale. There was a sharp pain in his hand as he pulled it from the wall.

His fist had caught a bur of cement. The skin on his index knuckle had broken, and had left a long smudge of bright red down the cinderblock. It had not really hurt at first, and Shinji was already crying and miserable anyway, so he raised his fist to scrape against the wall again, ready to make things worse.

And Asuka hit him right on the ear, with a force far greater than he would have thought her to possess. If her fist had landed flat, the compression probably would have ruptured his eardrum.

He went down _hard_.

"If you say it, it'll be true!" she was shouting for some reason, and her usually articulate speech was gone. "You'll be okay with being dumb. Maybe your parents will even start believing it."

"They'll hold you back, yes. They'll put you with the Brazilian kids," she said savagely. "You'll have to marry one, and then you'll have _Portuguese_ babies!"

She kicked him in the side in emphasis, but there wasn't much force behind it. "You aren't dumb. You're _lazy_. Watching TV doesn't help you live!"

Shinji hardly heard the last bit about television. He was laughing too hard. Portuguese babies. Even though there was no trace of humor in Asuka's still-pale face. Even though his parents were likely, at that very moment, on their way home to have a very serious discussion with him. Shinji Ikari lay at little Asuka's feet and laughed.

She said he wasn't stupid, and it occurred to Shinji that Asuka was right most of the time so... okay. He was just _acting_ stupid_. Playing at _being stupid. In a _very_ convincing way. When he admitted this, Asuka had helped him to his feet, and they had walked home together for the first time in months.

She had waited with him in the living room, until his parents stormed in, and announced she was going to tutor Shinji until he could pass the Sixth Grade final. Her presence, her statement, and Shinji's injuries - which were obviously self-inflicted, at least in part - had spared him most of his parents' anger.

They spent a good portion of the summer together. Asuka had her own thing, and Shinji was pretty absorbed with being grounded, but they met once a day, even on weekends. At first it was mostly to review for the test, which was passed after a month with embarrassing ease. After that, they continued to meet up because, well. It was summer. They were friends again. Shinji was starting to notice how Asuka filled out a bathing suit, and she... well, he never understood her very well, but she seemed to like being around him.

Their rekindled friendship survived one year of Middle School, and then Asuka had gone to study abroad in America. That had been... hard. At first she had emailed him once or twice a week, but the interval between communications grew and grew. The pictures she attached were filled with exotic-looking people. People that looked like her, and with whom she seemed to feel at ease. Mr. Sohryu was from America, which made Asuka a citizen, so Shinji supposed it was a little like going home for her. Didn't stop him from being jealous at first.

But as that communication interval grew larger and the two lost an active interest in one another, the jealousy faded. Shinji made friends with Kensuke, and got Touji in the bargain. When he noticed that the few photos Asuka was sending all appeared to be of her and the same blond boy, a _yanki_, Shinji had actually been able to confront the obvious without breaking down.

She had a boyfriend. Well, she deserved a boyfriend, just like she deserved the study abroad post. She and Shinji, they weren't on the same level. He wasn't a genius. It wasn't like he was even an option for someone like her.

Shinji had thought all these things quite lucidly, then placed a block on his email account so he would not receive any more email from Asuka - although he did so in such a way that prevented the messages from bouncing and alerting her to what he was doing. He started gaming a lot more, spending almost as much time and money at the arcade as Kensuke. Losing himself in the competitive crush.

A few weeks before Asuka was due to come back, Shinji removed the block on his email account. The first email he got was... confusing. Most of it had to do with Asuka being aware of the email block, and wondering why her oldest friend would decide suddenly to ignore her. There were references to previous emails he had never read. Her tone was polite, exact, but somehow desperate. Shinji received this message twice in the course of two days, both sent at the same hour and minute. She had obviously been running a program, sending the message over and over. For how long, he did not know.

His apology was equally confusing. Something about her pictures being too big, crowding out his inbox, and he figured he'd hear most of it through her parents anyway. After a few email exchanges, they had managed to get back on good terms. The blond boy from the pictures was not mentioned. When she returned, he and his family had been invited to welcome her. Shinji had gotten a long hug from a slightly taller Asuka, who seemed quite happy to be home. And during that hug, with her mouth less than an inch from his ear, she had hissed: "Never do that again, Ikari. If you do, you will regret it."

That had been nearly two years ago. Their friendship was more or less unchanged since then: formal, privileged, and always a little strained.

* * *

"Ten minutes?" Asuka asked from up ahead.

"We usually make it in seven..." Shinji replied to her back, thinking she was talking about their route to school.

"The deal was for ten, Shinji."

"Oh. The writing thing."

"Of course, dummy, what else is there?" she made a good show of sounding exasperated.

"Oh, yes." He answered. "I did."

"You wrote. For at least ten minutes."

"I said that."

The red-head allowed Shinji to catch up with her. "What did you write about?" she wanted to know.

No. No no no. We aren't doing this. Not yet. "I thought we were supposed to do that, you know, at the end of the month?"

"But you did write," she asked for a _third time, _then added "you're taking the challenge, then?"

I was not aware it was optional, Shinji thought, glowering at her.

"Okay. Okay," Asuka started walking ahead again. She was smiling. Not a good sign.

They were nearly to the school. At the gate, Asuka turned and said: "If I win, you'll give me a mon for Golden Week." That holiday was, like the deadline, one month away. "And," the red-head continued, "you'll cover my train costs too."

That was hardly fair. He barely had a mon in his savings, and he was supposed to be going to Club Sega with Kensuke and Touji tomorrow after school. _Maybe_ he could loan her the family travel-pass mom got from her job, but Asuka's name wasn't actually on it. And anyway, he wasn't entirely comfortable with lending out Ikari property like that.

He said as much. Asuka held up three fingers before he was finished, then proceeded to tick them off.

"One, you spend too much time at that arcade anyway. You don't need to be spending what will soon be _my_ money trying to beat your _Deathsmiles_ or _Metal Slug_ high-scores. Or," she quickly said, as Shinji opened his mouth to give her the real particulars, "whatever it is you blow 100 yen on, per attempt. Your grades are still high, but all this gaming could make it easy to _backslide._" The last word was in English. It was from King's _Carrie._ Slang for relapsing into bad behaviors. Like being an academic failure.

"Two," the red-head curled her middle finger. "You'll be coming with me, so no need to worry about loaning out your precious family pass."

Shinji was shaking his head before she finished. "I've got a tournament. There were _six_ qualifying rounds. It happens that Thursday. Look. How about we just do this for a mon? I can barely afford that, anyway."

Asuka waited until he stopped, jaw swelling, eyes shut. Like he was dragging his fingernails down a chalkboard. She was still holding up her index finger.

"Three," she let out the breath she had been holding, opened her eyes. "All of this is moot if you win. If you do, I'll give you a mon."

"What about travel expenses?" Shinji automatically challenged, and fell neatly into a trap as Asuka laughed dismissively and said: "Okay, I'll give you 1,600 yen to ride the Yamanote. And before you ask, no. I'm not going to follow you around to a bunch of seedy arcades. I have better things to do with my time."

And with that, she turned and went through the school gate.

Shinji said nothing in reply. Let her have the last word. Looked at his phone. Wondered why they had gotten to school so early. Still a half-hour before first bell.

He did not want to continue the argument now. If he did Asuka would get annoyed, and then the situation would get even worse. Push things too far, and she'd ignore him the rest of the day, then wake him tomorrow morning with a glass of water and no warning. If he was going to fight Asuka on this, better to leave it to tomorrow afternoon, so she would have the weekend to cool off.

It wasn't that Shinji was deaf to the notion of spending Golden Week with Asuka. Traveling with her, probably without any parental supervision. Its just that he had done the whole travel-thing with Asuka before, and it had not left him especially interested in a sequel.

* * *

The Sohryu and Ikari families had gone up to Hokkaido last winter to see a festival. Together.

It was all very cultural. Watermelon, ice sculptures, everyone in kimonos. Shinji loved watermelon, and he supposed the ice sculptures were pretty, but the whole kimono thing? Not for him. Too much like a dress. Especially since the only kimono he had wrapped across the front as a child's would, completely preventing him from having any resemblance to a television samurai. He would have gladly spent his own money for something else, but the only kimono merchants in Hokkaido were bulk-sellers that catered to American and European tourists who tended to respond more to bright colors than functional, well-made, _warm_ clothing.

So yeah. Hokkaido, winter break, wearing a kimono that made him look like a girl. Only arcades in sight were a few pachinko parlors that smelled of old men and sadness and too much tobacco smoke. No laptop, no portable, and he had managed to already re-read half of '_Salem's Lot_ - in English, no less - on the shink ride to Hachinohe. And oh, yeah. Asuka was there. Mostly to boss him around and comment on how his kimono accentuated his feminine curves. Not unusual behavior, coming from her. Mom and dad had come to think of it as normal, so Asuka's comments were not remarked upon. Normally, Shinji would have taken it in stride. It was just that... six straight days of it had been too much.

Normally, he and Asuka saw each other almost every day, but usually for no more than an hour, maybe two, not counting time at school. Sometimes they did stuff over the weekend, but only as often as not. The way they got along, it worked, when cut up like that.

But being together for six days? This was a joint vacation. The two families slept in adjacent rooms and took their meals together. Even though it was mom luring him out of bed in the morning, Asuka was still one of the first people he saw: usually wrapped up in a heavy yukata in the inn's dining room, drinking from a mug of hot chocolate or a (measured) dish of sake, her eyes focused on something distant and invisible. And then her attention would fix on him in the light, appraising way it always did, and she would turn to managing him, so he fit in the world better. It was sort of a parody at mothering that somehow never became old with his parents, or hers.

And of course the parents made it worse. Parents always do. Bad enough they had planned a joint vacation over a major holiday without consulting either of their children... But then Mr. Sohryu had to go and made a... a really _strange_ suggestion. He had mentioned it in the half-joking way parents use when they are testing for approval but don't really require it. To put it another way, when Mr. Sohryu wondered _why they didn't all go in on a private hot springs_, he had been speaking rhetorically.

Shinji had kept quiet, a sick, nervous excitement building in his gut. For couples to do that... mixed bathing... It was not unknown. Not especially taboo. But to include him and Asuka...

"Because it's sick, daddy," Asuka had replied, treating her father's statement as literal. "We go to school together. I don't want him to see me bathe." This was all said in a flat, matter-of-fact tone. She did not look at Shinji when she said it. The sick feeling in Shinji's stomach lifted and he was rather disappointed but, well, no point in doing it if she would hate him for it. If she thought it was sick.

The subject had quickly devolved into a nervous joke between the two families. It would later occur to Shinji that Mr. Sohryu would not have proposed something like that without first discussing it with his wife and Shinji's parents privately. With them being in on it and Asuka so casually disarming the suggestion, Shinji was probably the only one made to feel awkward by the whole thing.

Mix that strangeness up with a lack of gaming and decent television, add a dash of constant exposure to Asuka, and Shinji was miserable by the end of the trip. On the shink ride home he had gone forward to the smoking car toilet to be away from all of them - his parents, Asuka, her parents.

"And now I might be heading for another week of it," Shinji said aloud to himself, at the school gate. He hefted his bag, feeling the weight of the school-issue laptop.

He had agreed to the challenge. Asuka had stated the terms, and would likely not be persuaded to change them.

Better get to writing.

* * *

The first half of the day passed lazily. No major tests for another week, so all Shinji had to do was sit and soak up some notes on 19th Century History, do part of the homework assignment ahead of time during Math class, and play the simple language games the American ALT - a pretty, roughly Caucasian girl - had for them in English. When lunch came around, Shinji bought a shrimp tempura from the cafeteria and joined Touji and Kensuke on the roof. As they talked, Shinji looked out over the school grounds. He was starting to feel it in his fingers again, that tingle from when he had typed the last sentence in the opening of _Gray Flowers_. He wanted to write, but the situation prevented it. Bit annoying really, like getting an erection toward the end of a class and having to hold it against your leg when you leave the room.

Prose was skating at Shinji's mind even as he pretended to argue with Kensuke about passive vs. active defenses in _Castle+Die. _Both of them were in the Golden Week tournament and Ken, even though he was listed high, seemed to be worried about the lower-ranked Shinji. They would both be doing a lot of lying to one another in the coming weeks.

As Shinji affirmed that a one-shot landmine could be useful in the mid-game, cooldown or not, someone in the school yard caught his eye. Mari Makinami was walking to the building, one hand raised in greeting, apparently to Shinji. He cautiously returned the gesture. She pointed at herself, then at the roof, then disappeared into the building.

"Uh. Guys?" Shinji said. "I think Plaid is coming up."

"I'm out," came Touji immediately, gathering up his trash.

"Any excuse to get back to Hikari, you notice?" Kensuke said to Shinji. "And not even boob yet. He's like a dog."

"Fuck off, Ken," Touji responded in a good-natured way, then made for the access door.

"I heard she beat you with Dan!" Ken called after his friend, in reference to Mari. The other boy's response was swallowed up in stairwell echo, and then the slamming of the access door. "She beat him with Dan," Ken affirmed to Shinji, turning to him. "In Super _Street Fighter 4 Turbo_. So, what is it this time, you think?"

"Probably got around to beating my _Metal Slug X_ score," Shinji said, a rueful smile on his face. "I only kept it this long because she was playing the series in order, and since, you know, _2_ and _X_ are so similar, she skipped it over."

"Your own fault, Ikari. Should have stuck with the strategy games. You know, stuff that requires thought."

"You going to say that in a minute, when she gets up here?" Shinji asked, fishing a beet slice out of his soup.

"What's there to argue? _Castle-ecks-Die_ is like chess. _Metal Slug_ is..."

At that moment, the access door slammed open. Mari Makinami strode onto the rooftop, her horn-rimmed glasses catching the light.

"...less complex, linear..." Kensuke trailed off, mumbling a few large words meant to insult the game's genre.

"What was that, hikki?" Mari asked as she approached them, a predatory grin on her face. Her plaid skirt, an apparently acceptable variation of the school's dress code, blew in the breeze. To Shinji, hopped up on writing as he was for the moment, she appeared almost normal - but the bit of difference that allowed for the 'almost' qualifier, that was _totally_ alien. Two drops of deep black ink on otherwise blank, white paper.

Kensuke moved away from the railing. "I was just talking about..." he paused. Shinji held his breath. "About how _Castle-ecks-Die_ is all abo..."

"About pretending to be thinking deep while you sit and jerk off in your booth, yeah?" Mari had stopped grinning to adopt a thoughtful repose. "It's all about diverting attention from your stunted intellect, isn't that right?"

She paused for one second. Two. Ken opened his mouth.

"I notice you aren't responding, hikki," Mari spoke before he could, stalking forward. "Would it help if I gave you sixty seconds to plan out a strategy? Perhaps shuffle your deck of nouns and adverbs? Check your game-guide for pithy remarks about whether or not I'm ovulating? Or maybe I should..."

"Uh, hi Mari," Shinji interrupted. "What's up?"

Kensuke had been backed against the railing, a dull look on his face. When Mari turned to Shinji, Ken hurried by her and off the roof.

"And its pronounced _Castle-__**cross**__-Die_, fuckwit!" Mari twisted to deliver this last insult, then turned back to Shinji. "Hey there, S-I." She was calling Shinji by his initials. Because that was how he attributed all his high-scores.

"Mari," Shinji greeted in return. "What's up?" he repeated.

For a moment Mari looked confused. He had broken her momentum, distracting her from Kensuke like that. She'd gotten herself so worked up it took a second to switch gears. Green pupils dilated. She bent forward slightly, tucking a stray line of hair behind her ear. She raised one foot back, and brought it down at the exact moment she cried "right!"

"So yeah, Hey is getting in the new _Deathsmiles_ tomorrow. They put out a board this morning. Are you going to be there?"

Shinji opened his mouth.

"Because, see, they've got this new competitive mode I really really really want to try out. See, they have two cabinets back to back and they throw waves of enemies at you and the other person and whoever collects more points gets fewer enemies while the other person gets swarmed see?"

"Like in _Tetris_," Shinji put in.

Mari looked blank for a moment. Shinji wondered if she'd managed to never play _Tetris _before.

"Anyway," she brushed the reference aside. "There are two different scoreboards with this version of the game. One for solo and one for competitive. So. You've got the second-highest _Deathsmiles_ score in the El-El, yes?"

"Uh, as of last week..."

"Right, and I'm number one," she was bouncing on the balls of her feet. "So we need to play against each other tomorrow to get the very highest competitive score we can."

Shinji hesitated a moment. "Does it have to be tomorrow?"

"Yep. Yes. And you'll need to get there early. Like, last period? Skip it. I want this done before five. My boyfriend wants to pick me up at five. You know that new _theme_ hotel that opened in Uguisudani?"

Shinji tried not to conceal his surprise. _Boyfriend?_ And by theme hotel, she must mean _love_ hotel.

"They've supposed to have these baths that are huge transparent bowls. And white and red tiles, like its Valentine's. And these backless chairs that are really good for..."

"Mari?" Shinji's voice was shaky, but he spoke with volume. "I d-don't need to know about that."

Makinami cocked her head to one side. "What, are you a faggot?"

* * *

After lunch was Science. The class had finished a lab Wednesday, and most of the discussion was about that. Shinji had already finished his lab book the night before, and so had opened his laptop to try and work on _Gray Flowers_. Didn't really feel like writing - that particular impulse had leapt off the roof somewhere between "boyfriend" and "faggot" - but at least he could do some editing.

As he was moving to open the story, a chat window appeared. "Why the fuck does she even _like_ you?" Kensuke had sent. Shinji responded with the meat of his encounter with Plaid. Touji joined in. Half the period was spent re-telling the conversation and watching Ken and Touji react to the news that Mari had a boyfriend. The body of their remarks had to do with what the stencil on the back this boyfriend's canvas jumpsuit would read. Touji favored "Fuchuu," that being the proximate Federal penal facility, while Kensuke figured it would be "Kazakuiyoui," which was an insane asylum supposedly located somewhere in the Nishi-Magome area. Both agreed the jumpsuit would be filthy and covered in blood spatter. The boyfriend also probably affected a hockey mask and, beneath that, a second mask of human skin.

Shinji did not feel much like adding to the conversation. When Mari had taken an interest in him, he had figured that might be the starting point for something. Maybe something like what Touji had with Hikari, or more physical than that. She was pretty and fun. She did not mind casual physical contact, and appeared to go out of her way to talk with him. Shinji had interpreted all these things as cues to a mutual attraction. He had obviously been mistaken.

After Science came P.E. The three boys ran together, speculating on - between gasps - what sort of stimulant Makinami was abusing. She had joined the school mid-session two months ago, and had demonstrated the same manic personality on every occasion they had encountered her. Shinji had been lucky enough to meet her at the Hey first, a week after she started at their school, and apparently managed to impress her. That was why he didn't have a nickname other than his own initials. Kensuke had been labeled _hikkimori_ instantly, and Touji had been dubbed _fuckstick_. "He has the right make for a porn extra," Mari had commented, boxing the boy with thumbs and fingers. She had done this in a crowded hallway upon learning of Touji's association with S-I and the hikki. Hikari had been on hand for the encounter, and was apparently still troubled by it.

After six laps the boys rested against the sloped retaining wall that ran from the edge of the track up to the sports building. Shinji caught a flash of reluctant brunette slightly above and to the right, at the fence that ran around the girls' pool area. He blinked sweat from his eyes and saw a figure at the fence, profile so defined she had to be wearing a swimsuit. She was either looking down the slope or had her back to it, Shinji could not tell which - the sun had her in silhouette. But still, he knew exactly who it was. Her shoulder-length hair was the reddish-brown color it turned when wet.

"Maybe she's a call girl or something," Kensuke was saying.

Shinji sat up. Blinked. "What?" Mari. Right.

"I mean, she spends time playing those quasi-ecchi games, maybe she's just trying to, you know, meet clients."

"Figure there are a lot of better ways for an underage hooker to advertise," Touji replied. "Maybe she just got, you know, body issues."

"I thought it was kinda cool, that she was a gamer," Shinji joined in. "But, I mean, why would a girl bother?"

"Yeah," Touji agreed. "I always figured it was something you do when you don't have anybody."

"Eh?" Kensuke.

"I mean, if you don't have a girl or, you know, anything else to do. Maybe its different for them."

Kensuke responded to that in a defensive tone, but Shinji wasn't listening. Because Touji was right, and as Shinji again reclined against the slope, he began to think Friday, with this _Deathsmiles _thing and Club Sega, was going to be a huge waste of time.

His eyes wandering back to the fence by the girls' pool, searching for the red-haired silhouette that was now gone.

* * *

Dad was home. His tiny gray Nissan was in the drive. The neighborhood tuxedo cat was sitting on the hood, and watched Shinji as he walked past.

"I'm home!" he called out in the entryway, kicking off his shoes.

"Kitchen," came the low response.

The elder Ikari was at the dinner table, drinking a green tea and shuffling papers. The table was covered in open envelopes and business documents and the hi-tech laptop dad's firm had given him.

"How was your day?" Shinji asked, pulling off his bag and putting it in one of the kitchen chairs. "Is the work over?"

"Until the next thing, anyway" dad replied, picking up an envelope and holding it out to Shinji: "Have you seen this?"

It was from the school district. More information on the aptitude test results. With the notable exception of Math, Shinji was over the 97th percentile in every category. He showed the letter to dad, who smiled as he read it.

"And you failed the 6th Grade," the man said, proud and bemused.

* * *

The Ikari men decided to eat out at Ikaa's, the noodle shop a few blocks down the street. It was as much celebration as they felt like having, without mom there. Dad had suggested it, even though he was clearly exhausted from the crunch-work.

They sat at a tiny table away from the counter. Shinji had ordered a cold udon special with tangy dipping sauce, and dad got some soumen and a miso. They talked about the minutia of Shinji's day, the lab results in Science class and how his track time had gone up six seconds. They talked about dad's work, about the tedious process of conferring with the government patent office and the firm's patent lawyer, and how the whole system was thirty years behind the structure of modern science. They spoke together as easily as could be expected, between father and son.

And then, as Shinji was bringing his bowl up to drain the broth, dad dropped a bombshell.

"We might be having an addition to the family."

Shinji tried to gasp and drink soup at the same time. Had to go out into the street to his cough under control. Dad joined him, still eating the last of his soumen.

When his son could finally stand upright again, dad clarified: "I meant, we may have a relative coming to live with us soon." He was conspicuously not grinning. Dad's humor was either entirely coincidental or relied on perfect timing, Shinji had never been able to figure which.

"Thanks for that," Shinji panted. "Really."

"Do you remember Rei?" dad dumped his bowl, and the two started home. "You met her at the family reunion a few years ago?"

"Not really," Shinji said, thinking. The name didn't mean anything to him.

"From the Ayanami branch."

"Oh, the..." Shinji hunted for the word. "The albino?"

"She does have albinism, yes," dad allowed, wincing at Shinji's choice of words. "Did you actually _talk_ to her at any point?"

"I don't remember," there had been fifteen kids there, all about Shinji's age. He remembered a pale girl with graying hair and pink eyes. Maybe she had been really shy? He couldn't remember talking to her.

"Well, Rei may be coming to live with us soon."

"Why?" Yeah. Not the most accepting question.

"Mother wasn't very clear on that point. Is it going to be an issue?"

Shinji bit back an immediate response and tried turning the idea over in his head. It couldn't be that bad, surely, or mom wouldn't be doing it. But still, having to share the house with someone else, a _sick_ someone especially, that seemed like a burden. But... maybe this would be okay. They wouldn't make him give up his room or anything. He didn't really have any grounds to complain.

"I don't think so," Shinji finally answered. "When is she coming? What do we need to do?"

They were back at the house. The tuxedo cat was still sprawled across dad's Nissan. It yowled as they passed by.

"Well," dad sighed, betraying some amount of frustration, "we'll need to empty out the storage room, for a start. Your mother has already started the paperwork with the district..."

"When is this going to happen, again?" Shinji interrupted. He'd been thinking weeks - hopefully months. After Golden Week, please?

"Knowing your mother, tomorrow."

* * *

Shinji stared at his ceiling, waiting for the melatonin to take effect. He hadn't done any review tonight. Had not managed to write anything, either. He had sat at the computer for ten minutes, just so he wouldn't have to lie to Asuka in the morning, but the impulse to write just wasn't there. If only Mari hadn't shown up at lunch.

He was going to have to start responding to that writing impulse, whenever it came. Even if it meant stopping whatever he was doing in order to do so. But maybe feeling wouldn't come back. Maybe he had wasted it, and would have to start writing something new before the feeling would return. It was annoying, having to wait like this. And brooding over it probably wasn't helping at all. He shifted over to the other big subject, Ayanami.

Him and dad had cleared out the room across the hall from Shinji's. Stripped it down to a futon and a dresser and a lamp on the floor. The storage room had never been properly furnished, so that was the best they could do. Moving all that stuff had left Shinji exhausted, and dad was basically dead on his feet by the end. He had tried calling mom, but had just gotten her voice-mail, so Shinji was still very much in the dark about the whole business.

He thought back to the Ikari family reunion. The little white girl, huddled under an umbrella because the day was too clear, too bright. He had been playing soccer with a cousin, looked over and seen... girl, umbrella... She was wearing a white kimono with red effect. Maybe red and orange? Bands of some color like that, running diagonal across her chest. One of her tiny hands was a fist around the umbrella pole, the other was curled loosely around it further up, twitching as she noticed him noticing her.

Was he making stuff up? Shinji couldn't be sure. It had been a long time ago, but she had certainly been unusual enough for him to devote some attention to a stolen glance. Rei Ayanami.

"Rei Ayanami," he muttered. The melatonin was taking hold. His face was getting warm, his legs were growing heavy. Just grab the extra pillow to your chest and drift off. Easiest thing in the world. Think about this strange girl, plumb your memories and pretend to gain insight. Think about this disease, and all the others in your life.

Shinji pulled himself out of the doze with an effort of will. Rose into a sitting position like there was a twenty-pound weight on his chest. Disease.

Right. Disease. Disease!

He looked at the clock. 10:15 PM. Okay. Okay.

He got to his feet and stumbled downstairs, started the kettle. Ripped open six bags of green tea and poured them into a large bowl. Got a jar of honey out of the pantry and set it beside the bowl. Pulled the salad spinner up from under the sink and removed the inner plastic strainer. Dumped the powdery tea leaves into the strainer, shook it over the sink to filter out the finer residue, then replaced the strainer in the salad spinner. All set.

As he waited for the water to come to boil, he filled the empty bowl with three spoonfuls of honey.

After the water boiled, he shut off the heat and gave it a second to cool. When the water was ready, he poured perhaps a liter into the salad spinner, then went and used the toilet. When he came back the water was a light green color, and cloudy with tea leaves. He raised the strainer out, judged the color of the liquid in the salad spinner, then replaced it. He went upstairs and got his laptop and its power cable. By the time that was set up on the kitchen table, the liquid in the salad spinner was an acceptable shade of green. He dumped wet tea leaves out of the plastic strainer and into the sink, then poured the tea he had made into the bowl, stirring it until the honey at the bottom had dissolved and the whole thing was a deep amber-green color. He sat at the kitchen table, brought the concoction to his lips, and drank deeply. Rich and earthy. Horribly sweet.

One gulp after another, seven in all, before the bowl was empty and discarded on the table. The laptop was powered on, _Gray Hearts_ was opened.

Disease. Rei Ayanami's albinism. Naoko's brain tumor. Mari's mania. Take what you know. Mix it up. Integrate.

But he didn't have space for it, not yet. Seiji loved his wife, had just remembered her toward the end, and picked up her ashes. There was work to do yet. The fact of disease, and then...

The honeyed tea was hitting his system. Shinji lost his train of thought.

He didn't really know anything about Rei Ayanami, or albinism. He fought the urge to do research online. It wasn't important. Not to this. But how he felt about it, that unease, that sense of potentially have his own health threatened by the illness of someone nearby. He could use that. Seiji and Naoko would go through a period of shared despair after the diagnosis, but their emotional response would eventually split along two different paths. Seiji would come to fear and... and _resent_ his wife. Because she was a precious part of his life that was withering, dying, despite his protests. Naoko would...

Naoko would be the girl with the black umbrella, watching the other children play. Thinking about... about what she didn't have, about what had been taken. Thinking about not having children, not growing old.

Shinji typed. Set Seiji walking away from the crematorium, coming home to a burn-out shell. Naoko's work, at the end. The bland-faced salaryman walked through the remains of his home - _their_ home - trying to remember what it was like to be young and healthy and in love. Thinking about how disease can wither that love down to almost nothing, until your wife is little more than an acquaintance whose presence you tolerate out of pity and patience because you know she will soon be dead.

There's the mechanism for narration, right there, Shinji decided. Seiji feeling things out, reaching back, trying to relive the day Naoko became his wife. Confronting every horrible memory on that path. Trying to get the hate within him to die like Naoko had, so he could remember her as she had been on their wedding day, beautiful and perfect.

Shinji typed for one hour. Two. At 12:50 AM he swallowed two melatonin - four times his usual dosage - and tried to manage a stop in the story. Then he saved the document, shut down the laptop, brought it upstairs, and sprawled out on his bed.

He tried to sleep. Couldn't. Too anxious. He got up and took a quick shower, without a bath. Slid beneath the thin bedcovers, his hair damp, a cool breeze from the open window and the melatonin dragging him down into sleep.


	2. T minus 28 Part One

**Wake up, Ikari!**

**

* * *

**

T minus 28 (Part One)

* * *

_The world is broken and red and dead. _

_Overhead the sky is slashed open, a great band of blood stretching across the horizon. The moon hangs full and painfully bright, and is warm like the sun. __Just about every star in the galaxy is shining down, a silent tribute to the Earth._

_The land is a ruin, old and eroded._

_Waves of blood crash against the shore, spreading up toward him and gradually vanishing into the bone white sand. The whole ocean is somehow alive, the red liquid flowing like water. It does not coagulate and will not putrefy. It is living blood - the only living thing on the planet, aside from him and her._

_The world is barren. He can feel the __**emptiness**__. And he can feel her, though they are several meters apart. And he can feel the width and depth of the ocean of living blood, and through it the motion of the planet itself as it hurtles through space. Him, her, the ocean. And nothing._

_Just moments ago, he had been trying to kill her. To crush her throat, just above the plug suit guard. It had not worked. She had woken up and touched him and sanity had returned, unwanted._

_Now she is coughing, crying, clawing at her face. Trying to get the bandage covering her left eye to come off._

_-You stupid. You stupid. You FUCKER!_

_This is deserved, so he does not reply. Turns away from the crashing waves to face her, but reply? No._

_-You waited. You could have stopped it and you waited. I saw it! You and your mother. You waited until they had fucking ahaaaaaaaahhhhhgh_

_She trails off, curling around her head, elbows digging in the sand, feet pedaling behind._

_-They sliced and cut and tore._

_A deep breath._

_-They cracked open my head and mashed apart what was inside. They. My Unit Two. Mama..._

_She begins to cry and the sand melts together around her, turning to sheets of black glass, which splinter apart and flow together beneath her, forming a wide inverted cone as she sinks into the beach._

_He should go to her. But. The world is broken and red and dead, and she is the only thing left to be afraid of. So of course he is too much of a coward to do it. Of course he is not closing the distance between them, white sneakers digging his own gash of black, molten sand. _

_-Don't you fucking. Don't Ikari. Don't you. Don't you fucking dare you little. You little. Coward. You traitor. I saw what you did. In the hospital._

_He isn't on his knees before her, waiting. Someone other than Shinji Ikari is doing this. Has to be._

_-It didn't matter. See? Little boy jerking off to my chest. My boobs. Hah. Gonna tell the rest of the Stooges you finally scoped the Devil's tits. Didn't matter. Doesn't matter._

_She is on her side. Blue eye glaring up at him, teeth grimaced. The glass beneath her is popping, shattering as it cools, filling the air with a flurry of razor-sharp motes that drip off her like water._

_-I don't like you, Ikari. I never liked you. Ikari. Couldn't rely on you in the battlefield. Couldn't... rely on you to not be stupid pervert little fucker. Just enjoy it. That memory. Savor it. It is the most you can hope for. The highlight of your p-pathetic life._

_He's leaning forward. Not Shinji Ikari, not really. More like, the thing Shinji Ikari became after emerging from the red ocean. After finding his sanity by way of clenching hands and digging thumbs and her caress. But Asuka herself, she isn't there yet. Not quite. She's burning herself up hating him. He hates himself too. He thinks anyone decent would have a hard time not hating him._

_But he can hate himself. That is fine. He came out of the blood that way. It is a problem he can work past. He believes that. He has to._

_Asuka is different. She does not hate herself anymore or, at least, not in the same way. She could not have come out of the blood, otherwise. And that is something. That is a start._

_She springs up, grabbing his head and kicking her body into a lateral spin. Might have snapped his neck, easy. And his back hits the sand and she flattens his nose and gouges at his eyes and gives his testicles a few ill-pivoted jabs with her knee. _

_He does not struggle, only takes a few deep breathes. Whatever difference there is between him and the old Shinji Ikari, he can still feel this. But he doesn't scream. There are worse things. Like having white, winged demons break open your skull and feast on everything that makes you a person._

_The beating continues for some time. When she starts pummeling his stomach, he finds himself looking out over the living blood, where half of Rei's face rests on the horizon. His vision is set in a spiral distortion now, either from the pain or physical damage to his eyes._

We aren't built for this_, he thinks in focused delirium. _This should not have happened.

_He looks back to Asuka just in time to see her raising a large clump of black glass above her head. His breathing speeds up. Can't help it. He knows what comes next. Something about this new existence, hopefully something reserved just for him and her. Because of the way things ended between them. Parity._

_She brings the improvised weapon down, and his head sinks into the glass. He feels himself spread out, as his skull ruptures and everything to do with feeling is smashed out of either side of his head. _

_And then._

_Dawn is breaking. Purple sky, brightening. The celestial tribute to the Earth is visible, but faded. Shinji picks himself out of the crater his body has burned in the beach. Asuka is staring at Rei. Not the half-face leering at the horizon, but the girl herself. Wearing a school uniform. Hovering above the living blood, just off shore. And Shinji blinks and she is gone, and Asuka is crying, and the sand is burning, and the sun is coming._

_-Asuka._

_He says. She looks up. Stands. Takes two steps toward him, then falters. Her expression is refreshing. New._

_-You were_

_She says._

_-You_

_She tries again. He goes to her and hugs her and she does not return it but does not pull away either. The sand beneath her feet ceases to melt. He breaks away and, despite her protests, begins to unwrap the bandage covering her left eye._

_-Why are you. Don't, it hurts. Stop. Asshole. Don't touch it._

_She doesn't fight him, but she is afraid. Because she bashed his head in and has been alone on this beach with nothing but herself, and now suddenly he is whole and she is certain that whatever fixed him would not bother with her. No basis for that fear. Just something that bled over from her last life. A reflex. That fear of not being good enough._

_A ridiculous idea, Shinji thinks as he removes the last of the head bandage, uncovering a sparkling green eye._

_She stares at him with both eyes, green and blue. He thinks. Looks down at himself. He's wearing his school uniform. Came out of the living blood that way. Clad in an idea._

_-This isn't a part of you._

_He says as he holds up the bandage._

_-Or this._

_He indicates the other bandages, around her arm and shoulder._

_The sand smolders beneath Asuka's feet, and the wrappings burn away._

_They fashion a mirror from the sand, melting it down by hand and brushing it smooth over and over until they had something silvery. Something almost chromed. _

_Asuka looks down and wonders at the color of her left eye. There are no other changes to her body. Her bare arm was sliced in twain by a lance, she says, but nothing remains of the injury. Not so much as _tck_ scar._

_The sun is peeking out from _tck_ween ruined buildings. Shinji and Asuka are laying on _tck_ dune, facing the ruins. Her body _tck_ angled away from him and on _tck_ side. Shinji lays flat _tcktck_ meters away, his knees up, arms _tck tck_ his head. Even though _tcktck-tck_ are apart, even though they have barely spoke _tcktcktck_ waking up, both know. Both can _tcktck_ it. Now, they _tcktck_ together. What ever that means _ tcktcktcktck tcktcktcktcktck tcktcktck tck tck tcktcktcktck tcktcktcktcktck tcktcktcktcktck

* * *

Shinji Ikari came awake to a blur of sunlight and that noise. Tck tck tck. The dream, of darkness and blood and hope, quickly faded as he oriented on the sound of mashing keys and spied, between his upturned feet, red hair. Tck tck tck. Sitting at his desk, digging into his keyboard like it was talking back. Asuka.

"'su-kah?" he slurred, not entirely certain he was really awake. She hated it when people - usually foreigners, sometimes slope-heads from Okinawa - emphasized the _su_ and _ka_ phonemes. Sounded stupid. _Gaijin_. Playing dumb was the quickest way to get under her skin, and today it was Shinji's sleep-addled, reflexive way of saying 'Hey. Hi. You real? If so, what do you think you doing?'

Because there was no reason for her being in his room, except to wake him up. But here she was. Tck tck tck. He fished his cellphone up off the floor from the pocket of yesterday's pants. 7:15. Too early. She had probably arrived at 7:00. Hour before school. Too _fucking_ early. Tck tck tck.

There was no reason for her to be on his computer. At all. Asuka had her own gunmetal-black portable that left his school-issue-red laptop in the dust. And she never seemed to go anywhere without it, that slim machine that was light as a feather, had a brain the size of a planet, and came equipped with thermopower-wave battery whatsits that could keeping it running for weeks. Shinji's school laptop, meanwhile, was mainly useful as a word-processor and impromptu weapon, equipped and armored, as it was, for use by the lowest common denominator.

Shinji staggered out of bed and went to the hall. Saw his parents' door was closed, which meant Dad was still asleep. Asuka had let herself in again.

Too. Fucking. Early. The three words were on repeat in his head. Tck. Tck. Tck.

"'su-kah?" he repeated, turning to her and sliding the door shut. "You can't keep doing this, Dad's off the crunch. He's home."

"So you let me in," Asuka replied shortly, not taking her eyes off the screen. "And that isn't my name."

"What are you doing?" he came up behind her, scratching his bed hair, eyes squinting against the light flooding in from the window. His tone was reproachful. He was angry already, but trying to build up to it. Wanted to justify it on every level.

Asuka did not answer. Just sat, one hand against her cheek, the other jabbing away at the keyboard. She had managed to get past the login screen, of course. Had the command prompt up and a few different shell programs running. He spotted the directory address of _Gray Hearts_ in several places, interspersed with what looked like hexadecimal code.

"Asuka," he finally said her name correctly. "What are you doing to my computer."

"Nothing," she responded, sounding exasperated. As though he should have figured it all out for himself, just by looking at the screen. "I'm just inspecting the memory cache for the password you've decided to put on this mysterious, untitled document."

"I told you yesterday..." he began.

"When I asked you about what you had written, you changed the subject," she cut in. "I just want to verify..."

"I did my ten minutes last night," Shinji said, somewhat harshly, to the back of her head. "If you don't trust me for that much, I can't imagine how this going to work out."

She stopped typing. He crossed to his dresser and pulled on the first shirt upon which he could lay hands. It was a thin black short-sleeve from the 2018 Sanbun Carnival. Ages old. Still smelled of rotting goldfish and stolen sake.

He could have stayed shirtless. Let the nudity make Asuka uncomfortable. Probably would not have worked though - she was locked in place. Focused. Been a while since that focus had been directed toward him in any way. The attention was flattering in a rather flat, unfriendly way. It was all about her, after all. 'su-kah was worried she would lose their little loosely-termed wager. She was worried about losing to him a second time.

Asuka said something. Meaning was snatched away as he pulled the Sanbun Carnival shirt over his head.

"Yes?" he replied, trying to keep the full force of his annoyance hidden. That would just give her something to work with.

"I just want to see what you've written," Asuka repeated, her own tone light. Trying to shunt aside his anger. Indicating that this was nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to get worked up about. But yeah, that wasn't going to work today.

"I'm going to take a shower," he said, crossing to the door. Not even entertaining the thought of giving her the password. It was encrypted with the same stuff that Kensuke used on their school IM. She was not getting in. Not that fast, anyway. "If my dad comes in, you might want to not mention that you've been, you know, _letting yourself in_."

She replied, but he was in the hall already. Wanted to punctuate that last line with a door slam, but that might wake Dad.

* * *

Padding down the hallway, Shinji resolved to not let Asuka screw up his Friday. There was plenty to look forward to. Would not do to have a bad start sour the whole thing. The only schoolwork that he needed to worry about was a bit of math homework he had put aside last night in order to write. That still needed doing, but it was not anything he couldn't manage during History. Then he was pretty much free until that _Deathsmiles_ 'arcade date' with Mari Makinami, and after that: Akihabara at night. Caffeinated _Tekken _tourneys, sweaty _Metal Slug XX_ marathons, and prizing out Ken's _Castle+Die _techniques at the basement tables.

And there was this whole thing with the Ayanami girl too, though Dad had not mentioned any specific plans for today. Could be, Mom would spend another night in Kyoto. Shouldn't effect his schedule either way.

So yeah, full day, no good letting Asuka ruin it.

Framing that thought, Shinji set about his shower routine, which involved trying to free-associate with unknown memories. To remember his dreams. Recalling dreams was a writer's trick. Well, Shinji's trick, anyway. He imagined real authors - in his mind, anyone published - did it on a regular basis. The genre-authors, anyway. Seemed a reliable way to isolate and distill personal insanity and still, you know, be able to dress yourself.

And there was all sorts of crazy stuff lurking about in pretty much anyone's head when it was halfway switched-off. Great stuff, if you could write around it well. The idea for _Gray Hearts_ had come from a dream about walking down a street as ash fell from the sky. Feeling the ash, breathing the ash, seeing it fall off of you in crumbling sheets. Take that idea and treat it as metaphor - unless you want to wind up with a mediocre deviation from the _Silent Hill _mythos - and suddenly Seiji Takora is mourning his wife as his inner world crumbles around him.

Getting to that crazy stuff - _fishing for dreams_ - was tricky because it was, you know, not a normal sequence of memory. You had to feel dreams out by referencing relevant bits of personal experience. Maybe you are at a supermarket and see a lobster, or for some obtuse reason have a random, passing thought about lobster and, lo and behold, suddenly your mind connects to a dream memory from the night before, where you were being chased by flying spider-vampire-_**lobster**_ across the command deck of an interstellar ship called _Midnight_.

Best bet, Shinji had found, was to just let the mind wander during a nice hot shower until you stumbled across something. Some lobster.

Today was easy though. Today, Shinji was three steps away from the washroom, fortifying himself against Asuka's influence, and already there was a dream dredged up into waking memory. His anger at Asuka had done it, and a sideways, half-seen expression of disappoint on her face as he had left his bedroom. That had been enough.

What he could remember of this dream was... static. Just one scene. There had been a face on the horizon - _sunken_ _into the horizon_ is how he would phrase it, because only half of it had been visible - and the sky had been a dark purple with something big and translucent hanging over it. A Saturn-sky. A ring. There had been a ring around the whole planet.

In the washroom Shinji started the tub and stripped down. Turned on the washing faucet mounted on the wall and started lathering up. Tuned the waterproof radio that hung from the spout neck to a pop station. The mindless music helped focus him as he cast his mind back.

_He was on a beach. White sand running down to red sea. Was that supposed to be blood? Waves crashing, the same sequence of sound over and over, a background loop to this frozen moment. The red liquid soaked purple-pink into the sand. Asuka was there. Of course she was. She had been the tether that connected this dream-memory to his waking mind, after all. _

_In the dream she was a little younger, thinner, like she had been sick for a while or something, and was wearing something Shinji could not quite make out. The diminished Asuka was holding her neck and staring at him like he had done something to her. Something awful. _

The idea was a little exciting.

Shinji washed the last of the shampoo from his hair and turned off the shower. Went over to the tub and let himself in nice and slow. The water was nearly scalding. He shut off the tap and submerged totally.

_Asuka was looking at him with this flat gaze. Like something was broken inside her. Fingering her throat, the motion looping in his head. And... bandages. She was injured? Half her face was wrapped up, and there was a cast on her arm, and what else had she been wearing? Something red. Red and skin-tight. A bathing suit, but extending down to her hands and feet. A scuba suit?_

Submerged in the bath, Shinji started filling in the dream's blanks with manic, early-morning glee. This dream was prophecy. Asuka had won their wager, as she was bound to do, and dragged him down south for Golden Week. Made him go scuba diving. Then God had died, His (or was it Her? the features had seemed a little feminine...) decapitated face settling onto the horizon like a parody of the rising sun, and when Shinji and Asuka had come up from the dive...

Heh. Ruin. Asuka would win the wager, and nothing but ruin would come of it. That was what the dream was telling Shinji. Certainly. Or maybe it had been about that white face and an ocean of blood, and then been altered by his subconscious to include an Asuka he may or may not have injured, when she had entered his room and started hammering on the computer.

Either way, he had the dream now. Not sure what he was going to do with it yet. No reason to force it. The _Gray Hearts_ dream had happened more than a month ago.

Shinji came up for air. Got out of the tub. He was not one for soaking. Did a slow spin on the tile, squeezed most of the water from his hair, wrapped a towel around his waist, and then saw something utterly horrifying.

His school uniform, neatly folded, had been left just inside the door. Draped over the step that kept water from spilling into the hallway. Uniform shirt, pants, and two black socks. The pants were damp where the mid-leg fold rested against the tile floor. That area of tile was dry now, but back when the shower had been running, sure, it would have been wet. When he had been blind and preoccupied. And naked.

He finished drying off. Turned off the radio. Crossed the room and slooooowly opened the door, looking first to his parents' room. Possibly dad did that. Which would have been fine. But his parents' door was still closed, which meant...

He retreated back into the washroom. Took a couple deep breaths. Did several unnecessary line-of-sight exercises with the step and the place where he had showered. Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. She had seen him.

A vivid memory that wasn't his: _choking Asuka. Really putting his weight behind it. Thumbs digging into the windpipe._ Another dream fragment, from the night before.

He pulled on the boxers he had slept in and the Sanbun Carnival shirt. Tossed the neatly-folded uniform into the hamper. Started for the door. Stopped. Removed the shirt. Went over the tub. Took a deep breath. Submerged his head. Screamed until there was no breath left in him. Then he toweled off his face and neck and hair, all the while resisting the urge to find _something to hit._ Like, say, Asuka.

Back to his room, opening and closing his fists the whole way. Fury and embarrassment setting his face in a hard, hot blush. There was a small voice in the back of his head saying that it wasn't fair, that she had shot down that trip to a private spa up in Hokkaido during Winter break.

_"Because it's sick, daddy,"_ Asuka had said. _"We go to school together. I don't want him to see me bathe."_

That had been something Shinji could live with. It made the limits of his relationship with Asuka tangible. They were friends. Just and only. Maybe she was his _best friend_, but that was as far as it went. And there was a sort of bitter comfort in that. A certainty.

But now? What the fuck. _What the fuck._

He ran out of hallway. Veered into the old storage room across from his own, the place where Ayanami would be staying. Nothing in it had changed during the night. All the old books and furniture and the Christmas tree they hadn't bothered setting up the last two years were gone, out in the storage shed. What was left was a pathetic attempt at a guest room. An old futon, a night-light trailing cord to the wall, a dresser. Looked sparse and sad.

Asuka was fucking with him. He had math homework that needed finishing, and Asuka was _fucking with him_. She came into his house like she cared about what he had written, and. Naked. That little bit of actual dignity he had. What had she seen? Was his _thing_ small? Was she going to tell girls at school that his thing was small?

He was sitting, back against the wall, knees up to his chest. She was fucking with him. And she knew that he knew. He could not help but know. And this was not right. Did not fit.

_Friends. This far, no further._

Tropes swirled through his head, pathetic and damning. Like: why didn't she join me? And: when do I get to see what she has? Questions he knew the answers to already. Because, see.

_This far, no further._

All of that, spinning around faster and faster. Date sim games and Ken's hentai doujinshi merging with reality. He imagined her sliding the washroom door slowly open, uniform clutched to her chest, and creeping forward. Imagined a hand shooting to her mouth as she stifled a giggle. Because yeah. Because what could be worse. What could be more _fucking pathetic_.

"Hey."

Shinji looked up. Asuka was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame. "What's up with all this?"

He had just been staring across the room. Had not embraced the urge to cry. Lucky him. Shit, he was supposed to be a man, wasn't he? Ninety-seventh percentile test scores in every category. Smart. He was supposed to be smart. Just keep it in. Just. Calm. Neutral.

Less than five minutes ago, I thought about choking you to death, Shinji thought.

"A relative is coming to live with us," is what he actually said, letting it out in a hot rush.

"Mmph. Yui's side, right?" she always called mom that. Dad got 'Mr. Ikari' but with Mom it was always informal. And she got away with it. Shinji wasn't sure he even _knew_ her mother's first name.

"Yeah, mom's side," he replied, now in a wonderfully even tone. Didn't sound forced or anything. Perhaps he should be an actor. "A cousin. She's an _albino_."

"Like, little kid?" Asuka asked, then quickly: "Are they that close to human testing?"

"Testing... what?" The anger was creeping into his voice again. This conversation was irrelevant, wasn't it? He just wanted to be away from Asuka for a while. Maybe forever. "And, she's like. A year younger? Maybe two? I don't really remember."

He was fading. Would probably stop mid-sentence if he had to reply again. She knew that he knew and this was what they were talking about.

Asuka was still talking. Rather than sit there and get chatted into moody silence Shinji got up and went to his room, closing the door behind him, stranding Asuka - who had been half a step behind him - out in the hallway. Started to hunt for an acceptable uniform. Asuka had managed to find the freshest clothing for her little voyeur session, so the stuff he pulled on was a little sour. Had to blast himself a few times with aerosol deodorant before packing up for school. Started going over math problems in his head. Still figured he could finish up the homework during History. Closing the door on Asuka had, for the moment, relaxed him.

He was packing away his red laptop - now shut off - when Asuka opened the door. She had given him maybe thirty seconds. Why? So he could get dressed? As if the notion of privacy still applied?

"So, when is she," Asuka began.

"Hey," he was trying hard. Really, really hard. It was painful. Especially since she was being so nonchalant. "Hey. The door was closed, okay?" He shouldered the schoolbag and crossed to the threshold. Firmly closed the door. Resisted the temptation to slam his head into it.

"Okay," she replied, muffled. "Can I come in?"

"No," he opened the door. "I was just leaving."

"So when is she arriving?" Asuka asked again as they went downstairs.

"Today, probably," Shinji replied, but just barely. The feeling was getting worse. Why the hell were they talking about this and not the other thing? How could she think of anything else?

"Well, mother and I will come by over the weekend with a gift basket or something," Asuka said as they crossed the kitchen. He had to fight off the urge to just sit down at the table and refuse to move. To let Asuka go ahead, and skip the first hour of school to try to get his mind in working order. But. Math homework. Math was second hour, he needed to tough it out until then. Couldn't just dissolve in a corner. After that, anything, sure. He could skip the rest of the day. Wouldn't even have to feign sickness.

Out the front door. As she had the day before, Asuka made a show of replacing the emergency key beneath a planting stone. Down the path and onto the sidewalk. Silence. Nothing but Shinji and his circular thoughts.

A block down he stopped at the Kirishima convenience store. Bought a Coke and a freezer rice ball to settle his stomach. Asuka waited outside. While he was paying Mrs. Kirishima, Mana came down from the family apartment and passed by, offering Shinji nothing but a little wave. They had been friends once. They could have walked to school just now. But no, little wave. Fine. One more blow to a crumbling ego.

4-B, Shinji thought as he received and pocketed his change. Some guy in class 4-B, the one that cropped his hair nearly bald. Mana was dating him, right? Apparently it wouldn't do to talk to another boy, whatever their shared past was. He wondered about that. The fixation. Love.

Or maybe it was just him she didn't want to talk to. Though he had no idea why that might be.

Outside, Mana had stopped to chat with Asuka. Shinji lingered in the store, gnawing at his half-frozen rice ball, watching with growing revelation. Mana was not in Asuka's class, but they seemed to get on great. Laughing.

That was it: Asuka was _laughing_.

There was something wrong with Shinji. Had to be. Asuka was smiling out there. But around him...

And that was it. Sorry folks, nothing to see here. Not anymore. Shinji Ikari is officially, 100-percent faded out. Would have dropped the can of soda if it wasn't frosted to his hand. This was too much. This whole thing. The Asuka outside was having fun. If he went out there, it would change. He changed things. He took the laughter away.

Mana and Asuka continued to talk. Shinji turned away from them, chewed up every foul emotion festering inside him along with the nasty freezer-burnt rice, and with a smile that took every remaining ounce of energy, asked Mrs. Kirishima if he might use the back door, please. From there he took the narrow alleyway behind the store up two blocks, plodding in an off-balanced gait, veering into walls and bouncing off, a plodding, drunken pinball. It was pure coincidence that he was even going toward the school at this point.

Earlier in the week he had made a conscious decision to not mention Asuka letting herself into the house to his mother. Because he had been thinking, for whatever reason, that he and Asuka were friends. And somehow _also_ thinking that whatever they had could be broken by simply trying to evade her - that if he pushed her away, she would never come back. It was painfully obvious now... that wasn't really a friend _thing_.

A friend thing...

* * *

Late the previous year, sometime in... October, maybe, Shinji and Ken had gotten into a fight over some rare playing cards in Club Sega. They usually pooled their money to buy from the same machine on L1, arranged between two UFO catchers. Figured they were more likely to get foiled or laminate cards that way. On that particular day, they must have gone through sixty-thousand yen before getting a packet that contained not one, but _three_ foil cards. Ken had tried to take all three, saying he had a match in half an hour and those three cards were exactly what he needed. Seriously.

Except Shinji knew how Ken worked. He would take the cards, do his match, then wait until Shinji went upstairs to duel with the crazy chick with glasses on the _Deathsmiles_ machine. He'd take all three cards, and then 'leave them at home' whenever Shinji asked about them. They were supposed to play a round to determine who chose which cards and who got the odd card, but Ken was not in the mood for any of that. Didn't have time before the match, he said.

Shinji was not in the mood to argue, because Mari had told him she would play a game with him today, and the last time he saw her three of the buttons on her uniform blouse were undone and there had not been even a hint of a bra, and when she got really into a game she tended to lean over the machine. He had already seen a lot of boob. That day, he was thinking maybe he would see a nipple. If only Ken would stop being an idiot and at least give him one of the cards so he could get up there.

Things led to things. They ended up on the L2 fire escape. Ken ranting about this son of a bitch he was going to be playing against and Shinji mostly thinking about Mari's chest. Shinji tried to take one of the cards - at that point he didn't really care which - away, and Ken punched his arm. Shinji punched Ken's shoulder. Ken plowed into Shinji, pushing him against the fire escape railing, which was not especially dangerous - there was another brace at shoulder height, hanging from the upper story. It had felt dangerous at the time though, like Shinji was in real danger of tumbling off the side. And that's why he pushed Ken back and punched him in the face.

They both yelled at one another and retreated, Shinji upward to where Mari waited, Kensuke downward, with all three cards, to his match with the son of a bitch. They didn't talk for a few days, and one of Ken's baby teeth fell out, but avoiding one another proved too troublesome, and they ended up pretending the fight never happened. Didn't pool money for cards anymore, of course.

* * *

Asuka was not his friend. Certainly not his _best_ friend. He had just been confused, because normally the people you spend time with are your friends, right? And the person you spend the most time with is supposed to be your _best_ friend, right? But it seemed there were stranger ways of defining interaction between two people.

He was a punishment to Asuka. She was wearing him like an anchor. Like he was a punishment she deserved. Waking him up. Walking him to school. Making up his clothes. This thing in the shower. Like he was a little kid. How long had it been this way?

Her face, her manner. In Shinji's mind just now, the only memories he had of her were either when she was calm and collected, or annoyed. Like she was wearing a mask that slipped from time to time.

And what was she to him, really? She was... she was a constant. Yeah. Just... something that had always been.

What did you. What. Did. You. What DID you think? his mind stuttered as he passed through the school gate. Did not remember crossing the road to get there.

Different levels. Different intellectual levels. Friendship would not work. He was a routine. She must consider him a pet.

Shivering. For some reason he was shivering.

Ninety-seventh percentile in the country? Check. Minor arcade celebrity? Check. Friendship with Asuka? Sorry, nothing left of that but shards of cold, black glass. And it made him feel empty. Made everything else seem worthless.

Overreacting, Shinji thought as he swapped shoes and went to the school basement. Overreacting. The word was in his head, but didn't mean anything. He was overreacting. The idea was there, but could get no traction in his brain.

Something. Something was wrong. He was cold. His mind hurt, and his heart hurt too. And he was overreacting. And this was something he could have laughed off before. But. His mind. Brain. **C****old. Empty.**

The school basement was completely empty this early in the morning. Shivering Shinji made a slow circuit of it. Warming gradually as he took in the familiar. The not-Asuka. Kept at it for about twenty minutes, until first bell.

History was about the Chinese occupation, which the teacher refused to teach. Laziness masked as nationalism. The students were instructed to read from the text silently. Absorbing the shame, or something. The math homework kept going wrong on paper, so Shinji booted up the laptop - the teacher gave him a conspiratorial glance - and scripted a simple program to solve the problems for him. He had never done that before, since they didn't let you use calculators during the tests, but fuck it already.

After History, Shinji turned in the math homework and staggered to the nurse's office. Said he felt sick. There was a late-season strain of influenza going around, and a few vague symptoms were all it took to secure a writ of freedom.

Touji and Kensuke tried to start up a conversation in the hall. Something about a release from Soft on Demand. Shinji waved them off. He warming up, but at his core there was still a ball of ice he did not understand. Every slight motion was emotional distress. Words were worse.

In the entryway, as Shinji was swapping shoes, his friends tried again to speak with him. They wanted to know why he looked like shit.

"I just need to get out," Shinji replied. "I just. I can't be here right now."

"How about you stay to lunch?" Touji suggested. "Get something in you, you'll feel better. And after, we can jump ship with you."

"Yeah, hey, don't forget we have the arcade tonight," Ken added, rather unpleasantly.

"Think I'm going there now," Shinji said. "Maybe the Club, maybe Ls. Don't know. Just not here." The arcade would be better. Hardly any movement. No Asuka. Almost no thinking at all.

"Maybe you should, like... go home?" Touji again.

"Nah. Parents. You know."

"What's up with you?" Ken now, tone changing. Maybe beginning to realize this all wasn't some ruse to get out of tonight's arcade thing. "Did you, like... did somebody die?"

Touji placed a hand on Ken's shoulder. Strange thing to do, Shinji thought. Ken was opening his mouth to say something else and Touji jogged his shoulder, then said: "Who was she? Why didn't you tell us about her, Shin dude?"

Shinji managed a smile. Thought he had used all his smile up at the convenience store. Maybe he was getting a second wind. This sort of stuff. Friendship. He was on a more level footing with this. A bit of the ice in his gut melted.

"No. Not that. Just. I need to think," that was all he could manage.

"Wait, you _confessed_ to someone?" there was Kensuke, playing catch-up. "I mean, who?"

They were at the school gate now. Shinji was walking with a stoop, like his mailbag was filled with rocks. He did not answer his friends, just raised a hand, waving without looking back, and left.


	3. T minus 28 Part Two

**Wake up, Ikari!**

**

* * *

**

T minus 28 (Part Two)

* * *

The KK Noodle! franchise is, without doubt, the most horrible in Japan. The udon and soumen is pre-cooked and stored in a deep freeze, the dashi paste is of Ukrainian origin, and the vegetables - for reasons best not discussed - have the taste and consistency of soft bubblegum. You want tempura? Hope you like scabs of fish grease moulded into shapes suggestive of shrimp and pollack stalks.

But the franchise is quite successful, despite serving terrible 'food.' This is entirely because the Japanese people have a tremendous capacity for deliberate self-destruction. Consuming KK Noodle! product is a statement about your own mortality. Leaving to-go boxes from KK Noodle! laying about where others can see them is a call for help. Got a dead-end job? Wife divorce you and take half the pension? Landlord kick you out and burn all your possessions? Go eat at KK Noodle! Permafrosted noodles and toxic miso is what you deserve.

* * *

Shinji Ikari was sitting at a KK Noodle! stand.

Now, don't misunderstand. Bruised and battered Shinji had no use for suicide and, even if he did, probably still would be nowhere close to embracing a self-destructive impulse. He just didn't know, or care, where he was at the moment.

He had intended, in an absent way, to go to the train station and head cross town to Akihabara, but had staggered right on past the platform entrance without realizing it. He had travelled north from the school in a straight line until his body had decided it was hungry. It was certainly in line with the rest of his day that the closest place to eat was a KK Noodle!

Shinji had wandered in and sat down just inside the shaded porch of the stand, next to a foul-smelling gentleman in trashman coveralls. He then made three attempts at ordering off the menu above the counter, confusing the names of dishes, either mixing them together or transposing phonemes entirely, before managing a simple "whatever." The amount of existential grief conveyed in that one word was right at home in KK Noodle! and got him a big bowl of deluxe special. The trashman scooted several seats over as well.

The deluxe special meal was udon in a heavy and somewhat sandy fish stock with 'vegetables.' There was half a purple-yolked quail egg in there too, and a beet slice, and one solitary shrimp-shaped grease scab. Shinji noticed none of that, just opened the chopsticks and began eating mechanically, without reservation.

There was not a whole going on in his head at the moment. Just his morning. And Asuka smiling, but not at him. All that, over and over. Digging a trench in the bottom of his skull.

This had been a long time coming. His relationship with Asuka had always been a delicate act of cognitive dissonance. Knowing that he had a friend who was also a girl, but that she could never be his girlfriend. Waking up to the same face nearly every morning without actually having any intimate relationship, or the possibility of one. To think otherwise was impossible. That is how it worked. _This far, no further._Just a friend. Only a friend.

Only now... not even a friend. Something else. Worse. She had peeked at him, then acted like it was nothing. Because it _was_ nothing. Because his... his _dignity_ was worth nothing to her, but she had it anyway.

_This far, no further._ That block was imploding now, sucking everything that was Shinji into a mental singularity. Asuka had gone beyond _no further_, and it had meant nothing to her, and now Shinji could just barely remember what it was like to be _this far_.

And now everything was narrowing down to a few particular moments. The shower, his response, Asuka laughing (but not with him). Around and around and around. And around and around and around and around and around and ...

* * *

...sensation. Faint. Forward and down. Band of it.

Down. There was an interlocking configuration of two discrete shapes. Where the two overlapped: pressure.

Ih-kah-ri? An idea without form. A.

Sound. A voice.

Awareness returned. Two discrete shapes. An arm - _his _arm - and someone else's hand. Someone was touching him. He followed the hand up a slim arm, across a narrow shoulder, up to a girl's face. There was short, spiky black hair, hazel-brown eyes, a nose just a bit on the large side, and prominent cheekbones.

"Mari," he said what her name had to be.

The girl made a small noise and snatched her hand back, clearly startled. They had never met before, but the family resemblance was clear. Mari Suzahara.

"Uhm," she said.

The silly sister that had borrowed Touji's surf board on vacation last summer and nearly been dragged out with the tide. Little Mari, the karate kid. But not little. Not really. She was maybe two years younger than he was, but tall. Tanned. And doubtless saner than the _other _Mari he knew.

He leaned away from the noodle bar and yawned hugely. Felt like he'd been holding his breath. His skin was dry and flaky. The corners of his mouth were cracked. Must have been eating the udon hot enough to have the steam condense on his face and then dry it out.

"What time is it?" he asked, licking his lips.

"About 3:50ish," the girl replied. "Um, you are Ikari, right?"

"Shinji is fine," the permission came automatically. The only people that called him by his family name were teachers.

"Uh. Well, Touji asked me to look for you around the train station as I came home from school. I go to Ryuushi Finishing," the last bit was added with obvious pride.

Shinji stretched in his seat and looked about. He and Suzahara were the only people at the stand, aside from the withered Chinese attendant. The light beyond the tented ceiling was blinding and warm, and he wanted to be there.

He had almost nothing in his head and was liking it. Did not want to talk. Did not want the chance to ramble.

"Suzahara, can we," he pointed backward vaguely. Mind still getting up to speed.

"Huhyeah," she hopped off her seat and walked out. Shinji checked that his bills were all torn up, then followed.

Of course the light stung. He leaned back with eyes shut, a headache building, hands pressed against his forehead. "So" he said, biting out the word. "Why is your brother after me, exactly?"

Flickering motes of light filling the space behind his eyelids. Felt like pressing his palms to his eyes was the only thing holding his brain in place.

"Hahyokay. Right," Mari at replied. "Said something about a surprise, like. Something to do with the Christ Otaku."

"Horaki?" Shinji asked, taking his hands away and letting his eyes adjust. She was the school's resident Christian.

"Hyup," Mari Suzahara said, walking ahead and backward, fiddling with a strap on her uniform. "The _Jesuzu Freak_. Said to meet up at the train station."

"Horaki," Shinji repeated, because it had to be said. "Hikari Horaki." His friend, inasmuch as a guy could be friends with a girl. Not 'the _Jesuzu Freak_.'

"I said that, didn't I?" the girl spun down the street, swinging her backpack in a long arc. "Now come on, come on. Brother says I could go with you guys if I found you."

He waited until his vision was clear of stars. Took a few steps to right his balance. Looked around to orient himself. Noticed the name of the noodle stand he had been eating at.

"Ah shit."

* * *

Halfway to the train station, a familiar tuxedo cat meowed at Shinji from atop a vending machine. Shinji obliged it by walking over and buying a canned tea from the machine. This seemed to please the cat, who meowed a second time and retreated to the shade at the rear of the machine.

"Come on, come on," Suzahara shouted from up the street. "They're waiting!"

"Sorry," Shinji said to nobody. Suzahara had already turned away. Well out of audible range. "I know the cat. And it asked nicely."

Walking after the Suzahara girl, Shinji cracked his canned tea and fished around in his book bag for his cell phone. He had eight missed calls. Four were from the other Mari, the crazy one. Each spaced about 15 minutes apart, starting at 2:30. Then dad had called. Then mom had called. And then Kensuke had called twice. There were three voicemails.

Almost to the train station. Touji and Ken were there. Hikari too. She waved at him. Shinji half-raised the tea in return, jerking it back down as the first voicemail began playing.

_Where the fuck are you, S-I? You can shoplift porno anytime, but the Deathsmiles thing is happening right now! Are you excited? I'm excited. Can you believe how fucking hot it is this early in the year? Get here. Fucking El-El has the hikkis lined up around the block. Fucking get here!_

Makinami. Two hours ago. This could be a problem. He deleted the message. The next voicemail began, and her voice returned.

_Are you retarded? Did you get dropped on the head as a child? Maybe have problems keeping track of shit? Need to keep a day-planner? Did you forget to pencil this in? Maybe underline it and write 'big tits, no bra!' in the margin? Well, good job, fuckwit. I've been groped by four different fatass college drop-outs in the last hour, I shit you not, and this just is not worth it. Fuck you, Shinji._

She had called him by his name. Shit. The teasing stuff was routine, but. _Shinji_. Shit.

Horaki was smiling his way and pointing up at the elevated platform. There was someone Shinji did not know up there, some chick with dyed hair. Touji was behind his girlfriend, giving Shinji a thumbs-up.

He needed saner friends.

The voicemail played on.

_Heey Shinji, its mom. I'm getting on the train to Tokyo now. Your father said he'd talked with you about our little guest. Rei? Would you like to say anything?_

A second voice came on. Barely a soft whisper. Completely unintelligible against the background noise of the shink station. There was a sentence in there, maybe two. Sounded patterned. Polite and formal. Well, that was... something.

_Yeah, so, we'll be in about four today," _his mother's voice again. _"Your father did not know what you had planned, but if you are free after six, maybe we could get something to eat, the four of us? Call me if you can!"_

Shinji closed the phone. Considered just heading home, because he knew who the chick with dyed hair was, or what she was supposed to be, anyway. Horaki and Touji standing close to one another, like they did. Mari Suzahara all but tackling Ken, to the obvious annoyance of both him and her brother. And then the girl with the dyed hair. And him.

"Looking better, dude," Touji greeted him. "Thought you were a goner. Check out who we found wandering around school after last bell, looking for something to do?" He jerked a thumb at the girl on the platform. "Figured, you know, keep the numbers even tonight."

Of course that was who the girl was. Filler. Probably one of Hikari's friends. Looked pretty hot though, from what he had glimpsed from the street.

"I might have to leave early," Shinji explained. "Mom's coming back tonight and she's bringing this distant cousin to live with us. She might make me come back for dinner."

"Like, when?" asked Kensuke in his unpleasant 'stop screwing me over' tone of voice.

"Six...ish?"

"What are you gonna do with an hour and a half, Ikari? You can't even," the freckled boy trailed off into a good glower.

"Sorry guys, this thing just happened last night, and my mom wants us to do dinner and stuff," Shinji spread out his hands. It was out of his control.

"Yeah, well, we need a round," Ken said, looking up at the train platform. Looking down the street. Looking, Shinji noticed, anywhere but at Mari Suzahara. "I still think your land mine idea is fucking weak."

They all went through the turnstiles, climbed the stairs, and joined the chick with the dyed hair on the platform.

"Ikari? This is Asuka Langley Sohryu," Horaki introduced. "Sohryu, this is Shinji Ikari. He goes to our school, in 2-A."

The girl's hair was a deep, natural red. No dye. She was obviously some kind of gaijin halfbreed. And she was stunning.

She was wearing a knee-length black skirt and blouse, joined with a white belt that looked stylish, though Shinji didn't know fashion at all.

She was also wearing light jacket that did not quite conceal the generous swell of her breasts. Pomegranate-sized, easy. And while her features were more or less Japanese, her eyes were this... _blue_. Sky blue, electric blue... he couldn't think of an adequate term to describe them. And she was smiling in a peculiar way, not like she was happy or amused, but. Sly. Like she had a secret to tell.

"Hey," Shinji said, the word dragging a little. "You can call me Shinji."

The girl laughed shortly and looked at Horaki. "We already know each other, of course."

Shinji was smiling openly now. Did not understand what Sohryu had just said but. Still. He was completely overwhelmed. And now she was looking at him. Was he supposed to say something?

"I... did we both go to Kekkai?" he guessed, naming the elementary school he had attended. "I think I would have remembered you, though." Oh damn, don't blush. Keep eye contact. Nintey-seventh percentile in the country, Ikari, you can do this!

"Funny," the girl was rolling her eyes. No smile now. She patted him on the shoulder and sort of pulled him to the side, so their heads were a few inches apart and facing Horaki and Touji. "I've known this idiot since we were little. I can't believe he never mentioned it."

...huh.

"Oh, you um," Shinji stumbled over the words, pulling away from the girl. "You must live on Keshitei Street? Where it borders the lake?"

He had never seen this girl before. Not even at school. Hair like that, eyes like that, he'd remember. But maybe. Well. There had to be an explanation.

"Whatever," Sohryu waved him away, her expression clouding. "I don't know what you're doing. Fine. Its fine."

When she turned away, Shinji shot a panicked look to Touji. What on earth was going on?

* * *

"So, you don't know her." This was Ken's helpful contribution.

The boys were standing on the train, facing away from the seated girls. Because you had to find the girls seats and then, you know, stick close. To protect them from marauding gangs of train perverts.

Sohryu and Horaki were chatting, and Ken was making a courageous effort of ignoring Mari, who had taken to referring to him as 'the Korean' because, at some point in the distant past, he had favored playing the Zerg in Starcraft. There was some kind of weird background between those two that Shinji knew nothing about.

"How exactly would I forget?" Shinji murmured. "She's..." Beautiful, he meant. Only that wasn't a word you dropped around your friends, not seriously.

"Hikari said she was bringing someone for you an' that's all," Touji offered. "I mean, after this morning I figured... You know, she isn't... You don't gotta date her or nothin' but... This was Hikari's idea man, I don't know."

"Well... thanks," Shinji meant this sincerely, but had to say it in a slightly sarcastic way so he didn't come off as _sensitive_ or anything. "And forget this morning, I think that's all out of me now. But." He leaned a bit closer to the other two and said this in barely a whisper. "If I had wanted to date Mari Makinami, I probably would have just, you know, gone with the real deal."

"She doesn't have a boyfriend," Kensuke said, too loudly for Shinji's liking. Mari was looking over at them now. "So, you know. Point in your favor."

"She doesn't have a boyfriend," was Touji's hushed retorted, glancing around to make really _really _sure Hikari couldn't hear him. "A girl like that. No boyfriend." He raised his hands. What the Hell?

* * *

Rush hour had hit while they were on the train, and the Akihabara stop was packed thick. Shinji lost track of Ken and Touji in the press. Just kept his head down and pushed toward the east gate, where they had agreed to meet.

Something bumped him from behind. He was used to being jostled in crowds, so he ignored it and squeezed between a grandmother carrying a bag of stuffed toys and someone's expansive backside.

Another poke. Stiff and small. A finger. Shinji half-turned, ready to shout or glare or something, and caught a hint of red hair. Sohryu had decided to follow him, apparently. It was down to him to force a path through the crowd, and he did just that, pushing past two balding monks and someone with a guitar case slung across their back. Down a ramp crowded with salarymen and office ladies and some kids still in their school uniforms. Glancing back now and then to make sure Sohryu was keeping up.

He was almost off the platform and... done. He shot out into the low lobby between platforms, dodging nimbly between people that were in a hurry to join the press to be aboard the train.

Still no sign of the others. Must have used the other platform exit.

"Shinji!"

He turned, and Sohryu was pushing him against a support pillar with one hand.

"Hikari knows," the girl said, sounding incredulous. "I told her ages ago. What is this 'I don't know you Asuka' crap?"

"Hissssuga," Shinji said, apropos of nothing. Sudden confrontation. What? "I'm. I'm sorry? I just don't..."

"No. Stop," her hand covered his mouth now. People were looking. He could smell her skin lotion. Could not identify the mellow scent. Eucalyptus?

She was leaning in close, her face twisted and lined. "This was supposed to be fun. But you had to start it off with that stupid little lie. And I had to explain to Hikari how we do, in fact, know each other, and that you're doing some macho bullshit thing in front of your friends."

"Sohryu, I really..." he tried to interject, and the girl quickly released him. Just as well that she winced at the sound of her own name and took a step back, because Shinji had no idea how the fuck he was going to end that line.

"...Okay," she muttered. "Look, okay. I'm sorry, all right? About this morning. Lets just forget it ever happened. I'm. I'm sorry I did it."

"What happened this... uh," for want of repeating himself, Shinji fished out his cellphone to check the time. "We should be moving along, right?"

He started across the lobby. Sohryu followed.

"You need to tell me what is going on, Shinji," she said. They had hit another horde of people at the lobby junction, and she was literally pressed into his back.

"What is going on?" Shinji shouted to be heard. "Well, Friday night in Akihabara! Its crazy! You've never been?"

"Not what I was talking about!" he was jabbed in the back again. Right in the damn kidney.

"Uh, Sohryu? Could you possibly _stop doing that_?" He was yelling to be heard, sure, but he was also _yelling._

Jab. "Keep calling me that, see what happens!"

"Seriously, I think you broke the skin!"

"Come on!" she was pushing him left when they needed to go right. When he protested, she pushed harder. "I told Hikari we were leaving at the station. Since apparently I can't talk to you with your friends around."

For a moment Shinji braced against the crowd. Considered ducking and making a run for the wall, then jabbing his way back the way they had come. Because this trick, this thing, it was getting tiresome. He did not know Sohryu. He kind of wanted to know her, because she was just. Yeah. But going along with a delusion didn't seem the best way to get to acquainted.

He relented anyway. It wasn't like he was going to get anything done at the arcade tonight, and running away from a demented girl in a crowded urban area just would not sit well with his conscience.

They got through the junction and then Sohryu took the lead, going out the north gate and up the street. She stuck close to him, so they could talk.

"So, we don't know each other, huh?" she asked as they passed along the electronics expo building.

Shinji made a meaningless sound, hoping the noise of Akihabara would twist it to fit whatever she wanted his answer to be.

"Okay, _fine_," she said, pronouncing the last word like a curse. "So then, I guess you won't mind telling me what it is you're writing about?"

"You mean the... the mid-term?"

Sohryu did something between a yell and a growl and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Turned. People streaming around them.

"Do not make me work for this, _Ikari_. I'm reaching already. Even before you started this. My question is: what are you writing about? If you don't know who I am, it shouldn't matter, right? And no, I don't mean for school."

Hikari must have mentioned his composition test results to Sohryu. His one top mark. It must not have been much of a jump for Sohryu to assume he was a proper writer. Still, it was a strange thing to focus in on, wasn't it? She wasn't asking what his favorite color was, or about his blood type, or what his parents did. Was that normal? Shinji had not talked to too many girls, aside from Mari Makinami, so he was not sure. Maybe this was a test? An _are you smart enough to date me_ thing?

This whole thing was confusing, troubling, absurd... but. The story. _Gray Flowers_. She wanted to know about his story. Shinji had to stop himself from smiling, because Sohryu would probably think he was mocking her. He had kept the project a secret, even from Touji and Ken, but suddenly found that he really, really, _really_ wanted to let a bit of it out. To see if people would, you know, think it was any good. And if Sohryu was making this conversation a test, he wanted to pass.

But... how to even begin to tell her about it?

He started with the title. Sohryu turned and resumed up the block. He fell in step behind her.

"Its about this guy whose wife dies," he continued, now stumbling over the idea. "And how he, you know, deals with it. See, she"

"Sounds like Murakami tripe," Sohryu interrupted. "Some pathetic, weak-willed character dealing with death and getting pity sex along the way."

"No no, see..." it wasn't about that at all. It wasn't about death. He had figured this all out the night before, why was it so hard to talk about now?

"Did you want to know what I'm writing about, Shinji?"

Huh? No. Yes. Wait.

"It isn't about that," he said, pulling the conversation back. "_Gray Flowers_. I don't even think that I should be writing about sex, anyway..."

"Write what you know, after all," Sohryu interrupted in a tone that was, somehow, not _entirely_ condescending.

"Its about love." Oh shit. Did I just say that? Well, it is! "And what happens when love stops... the couple in the story, the wife gets sick. She gets a tumor. And it take her eight months to die, and the guy tries to make her comfortable but. By the time she finally dies, he just doesn't love her anymore. The. The story is about him going back, in his head," and Shinji pressed a finger to his temple, even though Sohryu was still leading him up the street. This was affirmation. He was reminding himself what _Gray Flowers_ was all about. "Its about him being able to love her again."

To this, Sohryu had no immediate response. They rounded the electronics expo. Crossed the street to the LG building. As they passed beneath the Apple Store's elevated walkway, she finally said: "How do you know that?"

"Eh?" he didn't understand. And she wasn't being loud anymore, so Shinji paced up until he was next to her.

"Write what you know, right?" Sohryu repeated herself. "How do you know about love? How do you know about it dying and coming back, huh?"

"Er, well. I read a lot?" How was he supposed to answer a question like that? "And I try to remember my dreams, which helps sometimes..."

"See," the girl interrupted, "I know all about that, Shinji. I tried to tell you once, but I don't think you got the email. I was in love, and then I was alone, and it hurt."

More silence. They walked all the way up to the canal that was the northernmost limit of the Akihabara area - well, in Shinji's mind, anyway.

"I'm sorry," he said when they hit the canal bridge. He still didn't understand what exactly he was being sorry about. It just seemed like the right thing to say. "Love can hurt, sometimes, I guess."

"What are you, stupid?" Sohryu asked, half-turning to him with a sad sort of smile.

Apparently I am, he thought, and stopped. Because they were going into a part of town that was not so crowded or well-lit. And he did not really know her at all.

Sohryu stopped too. Gestured forward. Shinji made a show of looking around, then: "Where are we going, exactly?"

"Just a bit further, okay?"

"Yeah, but. I mean. Where?"

"Its a small restaurant. You'll see. Come on, you need to be home by six, right?"

He resumed following her. But if Sohryu turned down one of those dark alleyways, he was bugging out. This was way outside his safety zone. Far and away. People could get murdered out here.

She finally stopped in front of an office building. There was a standing placard by the entrance that advertised a restaurant on the sixth floor. The restaurant was called Ruranguri, and it wasn't until they had entered the building atrium and crossed to the elevator that Shinji realized this was a phonetic dictation of Sohryu's middle name.

He lingered at the elevator door.

"So, we're. A restaurant, huh?"

"Yeah, my grandparents own it. Come on," she beckoned patiently.

"I. Is there anything I need to know before we go up there?" Like, for example, who you are, who they are, and why exactly it is that I am here?

"Yes, actually," Sohryu said as she pulled him into the elevator. "Do not, under any circumstances, order the Fleischwurst."

* * *

Hell was yellow everywhere. Its walls were covered with beer steins and vintage German ads. A bored-looking blonde gaijin seated them in a nook by the kitchen. The air was filled with a bitter aroma and abrasive foreign music. Shinji tried to just be happy that the elevator had opened into this rather than, say, a meat locker filled with decapitated, inverted human bodies.

Once seated, Sohryu immediately launched into Ruranguri's history. Her great grandfather, one Gregory Langley, had been a code-breaker on loan from Germany during the Second World War. He got asylum from the interim American government when Japan surrendered and spent a few years working for them. The Americans had an easier time trusting an ex-patriot German than the Japanese, apparently.

Shinji was having a hard time paying attention to all this. He'd already had a load of World War 2 today -– though it was rather different to hear someone _brag_ about their family's role in it -– and Sohryu kept leaning over when she emphasized something, which dropped the hem of her top about two inches.

The grandfather ended up taking a wife and having a kid, a girl they name Toshiko. Something something, Toshiko went to Tokyo University. Toshiko married a German man with the surname Zeppelin and they had their own daughter, Kyoko.

Shinji nodded in all the right places. Discretely checked his cellphone. Tried to will mom to call.

Toshiko had gone to work in some government ministry that didn't exist anymore - or Shinji didn't recognize the name, anyway - as a clerk. Ended up quitting after a few years of that and opening Ruranguri's.

The daughter, Kyoko –- Sohryu's mother, right? Shinji was having a hard time following this trip down the family tree – decided to take after her grandfather, and she _also_ went to Tokyo University, and while attending met a man called Sohryu, who was half-German, half-Japanese.

"Here, actually," Sohryu indicated the room. "They met here. Mother worked here when she was at university."

She paused. Shinji gave a nod that meant nothing. Silence.

"My parents met during university too," he finally offered. "I think they were in the same theoretical... gene... something."

"Modelling Theoretical Applications of Gene Therapy, back when Geigerror was still teaching it," Sohryu supplied. "I know, that's where they met my parents, too."

...huh. She was right. That was the class. And mom and dad still talked about that guy, Geigerror the Terror. Some kind of genius. Had a Nobel Prize or something.

Now, how could she be right about that?

"Um. So, how exactly do we know each other, again?" he had been putting this off for as long as he could but. Well, at least this whole thing was becoming merely weird, instead of creepy. This girl clearly knew who he was. Or her parents knew his parents. Or something.

"Look," Sohryu's eyes were closed and her jaw was set. Made her cheeks bulge out a little. "I'm trying to tell you something here. I'm. I said I was sorry about this morning, okay? Could we please stop this?"

"Well, what happened this morning, then?" Shinji asked.

"Seriously, stop," Sohryu repeated. "This is. This is not going..."

"Little Asuka!"

An elderly woman had emerged from the kitchen and was caning over to the table. Sohryu rose and hugged her, speaking a combination of Japanese and what had to be German.

"And you brought the Ikari brat too, I see," the old woman, Toshiko? said good-naturedly.

...graaah.

Shinji fixed a smile on his face. Started standing up, but could only manage to sit on the edge of the booth. "G-good evening, ma'am," he said, and ducked his head.

She knew him. This was getting. This was absurd. And. And he was tasting peppermint. And.

_**Nothing but gray. Vast. Almost empty.**_ **And cold.**

Shinji jerked to his feet. Almost stumbled back down. He was shivering so bad it was hard to move properly. The old woman and Sohryu had both taken a step back.

"S-s-s-sorry," he sputtered. "I just need. Just need a m-minute..."

_**Almost empty. Cold. And lines. Threads. Distant. Vertical. Stretching up and down into infinity.**_

Shinji sobbed. Tried to pass it off as a laugh. Tried to pretend. Made for the elevator.

The old woman was saying something in German. Sounded more curious than offended. Good. Wouldn't want Sohryu to... wouldn't want _Asuka_ to be embarrassed...

He jammed the call button and put his back to the door.

_**Something. A vibration in the gray. Not a thread. Growing bigger.**_

"Frost?" that was the blonde gaijin, suddenly at his side, leaning in. She was touching his arm, but he could just barely feel it.

"He's covered in it," she said, and then Asuka was there too. Grabbing his arm and squeezing it.

"That's impossible," she said. "What is happening to you?"

_**Building up, getting bigger. Coming toward him. The vibration in the gray.**_

The elevator arrived. Shinji fell into the car, pulled himself up.

"S-stay away, okay?" he cried, warding the hostess and Asuka off with a hand. "Just. B-b-back. Asu-ka. Guh..."

But she was in the elevator with him. And the door was closing, and she was coming at him. He lashed out with a foot, not really kicking but catching her in the hip and pushing her back. She bounced off the closing door to no effect. Which was. Which was _bullshit_. Stupid door. Should have re-opened automatically.

Again, she came at him.

_**Vibration. Him. It. Both. Half a thought. A whole lot of history. Pouring into him.**_

He flinched and slipped. The ground was covered in slippery white somehow.

"What is it?" Asuka was saying. "What do you need me to do?"

"Just. Get. Away. Please," Shinji managed to bite out. "I think. You are making. It happen."

Unfair maybe. But. Could not care. Had to get away. Asuka stayed on the far side of the elevator all the way down.

"Mustn't run away," he babbled to himself as he staggered across the building atrium. "Shut up," he replied.

Asuka was keeping her distance, and it felt good. The pressure was bleeding away. The gray was receding. He could feel his arms and legs again.

Outside it took him a moment to get his bearings. He had never been to this particular part of Tokyo 3 before.

No, wait. This was _Tokyo_. He knew exactly where he was. He just needed to start down the street and go over the canal and he'd be back in Akihabara.

Akihabara. The Electric City? The haunted ruin?

"Yes," Shinji told himself. "Shut up."

Down the street. Walking differently. His pace kept switching. He kept trying to walk in Tokyo 3. Stupid. Stupid thing.

"Nothing here," he growled. "Tokyo, see? There isn't even a _second_ Tokyo."

Down into the lights of Akihabara. He remembered spending the night in a place like this, in a theater. There had been a couple making out in the front row, and a man sleeping with a newspaper draped over his face, and on the screen, something about a 'Second Impact.'

"No," he insisted. "Wrong again."

Club Sega. That place he knew. And it was only _him_ that knew it. There was nothing like it in Tokyo 3. Down the stairs. He needed to find Kensuke. Tell him to. Lay off. About piloting. The. Nggggh.

"Fuck. Off," he hissed.

He was on the bottom floor, where the _Castle+Die_ machines were set up. Ken was in the corner, in his usual spot. And across from him was Mari Makinami.

Shinji turned around and started up the stairs, his mind for a moment cleared of confusion. She had not been facing him. She would not know that he was even

"YOU!" someone pushed him from behind. He was getting _really _tired of that.

"H-hey," Shinji stammered. "Hey. I was just."

"You're late, S-I!" Mari crowed, weaving her arm around his own and pulling him forward. "By about four fucking hours."

"I. I need to talk with Ken," Shinji protested though, for the life of him, he could not remember exactly what he had been going to talk to Kensuke about.

"Ask me. I'll give you his response: anime is awesome, body pillows are better than the real thing, and ceramic statuettes are the ultimate form of cultural expression."

Asuka was there again. Close. Closing in. He jerked around, saw her coming up the street. They were in the street now, apparently. He warded her off with his free hand.

"So they give you this, like, familiar thing, right?" Mari was saying. "Its one of those auto-shoot things. Passive firing, or whatever. Like in _Gaiden_, right?"

"What?"

Mari growled. Stepped up the pace. "_Deathsmiles_, dummy. Remember? They added a bunch of shit and I don't want to waste an hour waiting for you to learn about it."

"So anyway, you get a familiar, and there are like, three of them, and they each come with their own type of attack..."

She talked like that all the way to the El-El arcade.

The place was full of course. It was crowded even during the weekday when school was in session. People were piled six deep around the gleaming new _Deathsmiles_ machines, which were arranged at the front of the arcade, back-to-back. Makinami planted Shinji at the end of one line, then crossed over to the machine opposite, managed to negotiate her way to the front of that line and challenged the guy on the machine Shinji was waiting for.

He could have run away at this point. If he could just get to the train station, Makinami would never be able to catch him, but. There was a new feeling now, different from the gray and different from Asuka's lingering proximity. Like inertia. Like he was falling toward some kind of conclusion, and had been for a while now.

Makinami creamed the first guy. Challenged the second. The third. Asuka was closing in, watching from the sidewalk. Talking into her phone. Shinji knew all this without looking directly at her, could trace her actions from the imprint she was scorching into the side of his brain.

One person left, then the machine would be his. Makinami was cackling. The feeling of inevitability was growing ever stronger. Something needed to happen. Wanted to happen.

Something that had already happened was, somehow, happening right now.

The _Deathsmiles_ seat was empty now. The person that had just been there was off to one side, cursing at a smiling Makinami. Numbly, Shinji sat. Fed in 200 yen. Started the game. Accepted the challenge.

The _Deathsmiles_ series was a horizontal shooter. The player was one of four different sexy witches. Shinji favored the nimble fighter with the four-directional shot, a librarian archtype. The new option to select a familiar he did at random, picking a black-and-white blob with blue eyes that meowed when he chose it.

The game began. Enemies flowed in from the opposite side of the screen. Shinji killed them. Everything here was new, the background, the sprites, but he wasn't paying attention to any of that. He was just moving around, just letting his hands do their killing trick.

Time passed. Shinji's world dissolved. The character on the screen continued to kill. He was shouting, he was grinning, he was goading, but it wasn't really him. This was just what had to happen. What had already happened. What was happening now.

And then his eyes mis-focused, and he was staring into the glass that covered the machine's display instead of the game, and Asuka was right behind him. And

BAM!

_**Distinct. Something yanking free. The vibration in the gray was leaving him now. Flowing out.**_

Something moving in the smoke and electrical discharge, a shape that was not quite there.

_**Something new. Inky black. Wrapping around the vibration. Containing it. Webbing it up.**_

The phantom looked down at him and grinned mindlessly.

"Y-you," Shinji stammered, and felt the weight of a small and nasty destiny lift off his shoulders.

"Me," the ghost in the ruin of the _Deathsmiles_ machine nodded. The apparition that was, for some reason, wearing Shinji's face. "Yes. Me."

And then it vanished, and people were screaming, and someone was dragging him away.


	4. T minus 28 Part Three

**Wake up, Ikari!**

* * *

T minus 28 (Part Three)

* * *

_The buzz of cicada and a pulsing green light drag Shinji from the land of poison plastic smoke and smiling ghosts. _

_One moment coughing out in the middle of the street, the next sitting upright in a cool blue room. There is a _gaijin _leaning over him, shining a penlight-like device into Shinji's eyes. After a few seconds of this the man clicks the device off and snaps it forward, then examines the four prongs that have sprung up around the tip of it._

_The _gaijin _says something in a foreign language - maybe English. Shinji can only shake his head. The man is making all the right kinds of noises, including those damnable L-sounds, but Shinji just can't understand him - his spoken English is terrible. Maybe if his head didn't feel like it was stuffed with cotton..._

_Another man joins the _gaijin _now. The newcomer is wearing some kind of skintight jumpsuit, black with green trim, and a complicated green mask that covers half his face. _

"_He wants to know if you are bilingual," the masked man says, then raises a white-gloved hand in apology, his mouth curving in a strange kind of smile. "Oh, and sorry about no introductions, Mr. Ikari. We'll be there in a moment."_

"_N8h," Shinji answers. "Is tr/e;n m*oes E9ngshi e Duesman..." wait. What? "Soz nu4 to^?" _

_The words. He had them in his head, but when he opened his mouth... _noise _came out._

"_Resa(3!" he shouts, clutching the sides of his head. The exploding game cabinet, all that melting plastic. It had gotten into his brain. It had _hurt _something. "Ziep(* h ziep(* h," he cries out. Oh shit oh shit..._

_The _gaijin _has his little device out again. Green light, more trilling cicadas._

"_Blimey," a new voice comments. "That's a first!"_

"_H Zeit oh shit oh..." Shinji trails off as the sounds coming out of his mouth assumed the correct shape._

"_I. What just..." he looks up. The _gaijin _is smiling, looking pleased with himself. The other man - the one with the mask - his expression is unreadable, his mouth a straight line._

"_Hallo," the _gaijin _said. "I'm the Doctor. Sorry about the confusion. Seems your morphology has warped into an exotic energy condenser. Sapped the cognitive translation program right out of my head. Never seen the like."_

"_You," Shinji breaths. "Aren't speaking Japanese."_

"_And you," the Doctor responds, fishing a foil bag out of his top coat pocket, "were just speaking a very old, nearly dead language." He opens the bag and pulls out a pink poki. "Care for a sweet?"_

"_I was... I was making _noise_," Shinji pants, ignoring the candy. "I was. And now you're talking in a language I don't know. But. I can understand you."_

_Silence. The Doctor chews down the poki, then starts on another. Glances at the masked man._

"_You're in quarantine, Shinji," the mask says. "We need to talk to you about what happened."_

"_An... there was an explosion," the boy replies. "I was just sitting there. The screen crackled and then everything was white and. I... I didn't do anything. Quarantine. Why am I... English. Really?"_

"_We know all about that, Shinji" the Doctor interrupts between bites of poki. "We wanted to talk about what happened _before _the explosion."_

_Before the... Asuka. He... somehow he had forgotten her. All about her. What was that? What did you call something like that? How did that happen!_

_Shinji accepts one of the Doctor's poki. It is watermelon-flavored. _

_He tells them all about it, these two strangers. How he had suddenly forgotten someone he had known since childhood. How he had denied knowing her to her face. How he had been tricked into seeing her without... and here he was vague, though both men seemed to understand. No limits. Being too honest with himself. Wanting. _

_He finishes the poki, and accepts another._

_It was crazy. It was absolutely abnormal. But talking about it helps. The Doctor kept asking questions, pulling Shinji through the story when he begins to circle around the sheer _fucking madness _of the event._

"_You're going to be fine Shinji," the Doctor finally says, when the story is told in full and the bag of poki is empty. "You don't understand how strong you are. This thing that happened to you, it murders people. It unmakes them. One minute you're having a... a sushi or whatever, and the next you're gone from the timestream, you were never even born. For someone who was just proximate to an alternate version of himself - an alternate charged with void energy, no less - you manage to survive with just a few tweaks in your immediate personal timeline, which you appear to have fully recovered from."_

_Shinji is shaking. Shaking in front of these people. B-but it is okay. Asuka has already taken his dignity for safekeeping, after all._

Unmade_. Or worse, being changed into something else, and _never even knowing it_._

"_Shinji?" the Doctor is right by his ear. "Listen. You just survived the single most traumatic thing that can happen to a human being, and that includes death."_

_The boy turns to the _gaijin_. "But. B-but," he sputters. "I didn't do anything, see? I didn't... I didn't really want to forget about Asuka. And I didn't want the screen to burst. And it... it shouldn't have happened! But it. All of this. All this random, stupid stuff that no one could ever see coming..."_

"_The universe is vast, and complicated, and ridiculous," the Doctor says, his voice even. Calming. "The multiverse, infinitely moreso. Sometimes there are strange, seemingly random events, and because we can't understand them, we call them _miracles. _Lights in the sky, sounds in stillness. But_ this _was no miracle, please understand. Nor was it some cosmic _random act of violence_. And if you remember nothing else, keep this with you: _all of this happened for a reason_."_

"_W-will it happen again?" Shinji, he _has _to ask this question. But of course it might. That is point. He can never see -it- coming, even if -it- happens for a reason. _

"_Yes," the Doctor replies, looking away now. "Yes, two more times, in fact."_

_Shinji lets out something between a gasp and a sob. Becoming someone else. Forgetting. No, he can't do that again. He would not. No. Never._

"_It won't be the same," the Doctor says. "You survived. You're ripe with all kinds of exotic energy. You're an anomaly at a quantum level, see? A singularity. You've got a bit of the void, from which all reality sprang, inside of you, and now you're sort of a... a discrete universe, walking around in pants and a hat. The next time that thing, what you rather cleverly called _'a small and nasty sort of destiny' _comes calling, you will be able to resist."_

"_But you must not," the masked man interrupts. "You won't be in any danger, Shinji, and you will be able to resist, but you must follow through with the paradox compulsion."_

"_Why?" Shinji hadn't quite finished processing what the Doctor has said. "Why should I do something like that? That thing, that ghost, that _guy _in the arcade, he attacked me. And now you say it will happen again two more times. Someone is going to attack me and... and I'm supposed to just go along with it?" He is screaming by the end and off the bed. Backing into the corner._

_The mask rounds the Doctor and approaches him._

"_You won't be hurt," the masked man is saying in a very controlled tone of voice. "No more exploding monitors, promise. Look, your whole... this whole reality is shaped wrong, see? It runs backwards. The other Shinji, the one you saw today, he's old news. From certain points of view, this all happened three years ago."_

"_Old news," Shinji repeats, manic. "S-so why would anyone c-care?"_

_The Doctor coughs. Holds up a hand. Gets back between Shinji and the mask. "Its a matter of causality, Shinji," he said. "Cause and effect. Changing something small that happened long ago can bring about massive changes in the present. This is, what, 2020? You're a smart kid. You read, I'm sure. This shouldn't be new information."_

"_I'm in a c-coma," Shinji stutters to no one. "I breathed in too m-much of that toxic smoke and I'm in a real hospital somewhere, drooling on myself."_

"_These two future events," the Doctor presses on, "call them meta-temporal paradoxes. Worse than your normal paradox. Affects the causal nexus of several different realities. Harmless, if you meet the criteria of the paradox event, but if you don't..." he trails off, realizing Shinji is no longer even looking at him._

_Silence. Shinji is sitting in the corner now, staring blankly across the room. None of this is really __happening. None of this matters._

"_Lets just give him the ring and go," he hears the mask say. "I. I can't stand this. Someone else will have to deal with it. Later."_

"_Shinji," the Doctor again. The boy doesn't respond. "I know you'll remember this. Even if you think that it was something you made up in your head. So, Shinji, I have to tell you. A paradox is a rather simple thing. A high-energy knot in space and time, expressed on a quantum level. Okay, maybe not simple, but still. A knot, right? If you meet the paradox criteria, the knot untangles, and all that energy released, that_ becomes the future_."_

"_But if you don't... If you break the paradox, the energy knot remains. And that won't be the end of the universe by any means, but this arm of the Milky Way galaxy? All those lights in the night sky? They'll all be gone. Earth will be gone. Not your Earth. Not this reality, but in many others. That's what happens when you seal the future up in the past." _

"_We're talking trillions of lives, kid," the mask is saying. "All those Earths and the worlds beyond. Look. Look, I know who you are. You're Shinji Goddamn Ikari. Every single one of those Earths has a Shinji Ikari on it. An Asuka Langley Sohryu. A Rei Ayanami."_

_Wait. The albino? Shinji hadn't mentioned her, had he? How..._

"_And their current reality is all a result of something that happened three years ago," the mask continued. "Something that will happen to you in maybe three months. You've got to..."_

_And then a bell is tolling, deep enough to shake the wall Shinji is leaning against._

"_Ah, that's our five minutes," the Doctor says. "So, right. The ring, and then we go."_

* * *

"Hey, kid?" a woman was leaning over Shinji, shining a light down at him. "Pupils respond. Keep him elevated and load him up."

The woman pulled back and it was just the pink night sky overhead, hemmed in by the neon of Akihabara.

"I know him," someone was shouting. "I'm family, let me through!"

Shinji focused. Straps were being pulled tight across his chest. "Up," he said. "Let me up!"

They were taking him back to quarantine. Back to the blue room that wasn't really there.

"Let me go!" He flexed against the straps, tried to lean up to see them. Managed to slide one arm free and start working one of the buckles.

"Kid, you've been hurt," the woman was back, kneeling by him. "We need to get you to a hospital."

"No," Shinji replied, shaking his head. He had to get loose. Had to make sure that this was real and not in his head. He kept fumbling with the buckle, but it was on the side and he couldn't open it with only one hand.

The woman sighed. Worked the buckles for him. Shinji was on his feet at once, wincing from the pain in his face and running down the back of one leg. But. Didn't matter. Free.

He took stock. One pantleg was shredded, the flesh at the ankle scraped raw. His uniform shirt had a few drops of blood down the front, and his cheek and chin was sticky and cold with the stuff.

He looked around. He was out in the street, in front of the El-El. Lots of flashing emergency lights, but no sirens. Yellow tape everywhere, forming a crescent around the arcade, holding a large crowd back. The _Deathsmiles_ machine was still burning, the smoke crawling up the side of the building, drifting to either side of the arcade's orange-neon sign. White-smocked police were everywhere, holding the crowd at bay and doing something that looked _scientific_ over at the busted machine.

And Asuka was there at the front of the crowd, talking to a policewoman.

No Doctor, no mask. Just him in the middle of what looked like a crime scene with an aching pain he could feel in the roots of his teeth.

This was real. It had to be.

He allowed himself to be taken to the ambulance and examined. There was a deep cut on his face and a friction burn running up one leg, and he had lost a little blood. The woman - Dr. Riranke of Portable Medical Center 12, as she introduced herself - took some pictures of the cut with the ambulance systems, then cleaned it out with a heavy aerosol and glued it shut. Then she gave him a quick MRI, just the helmet, to make sure he wasn't going to, you know, inexplicably hemorrhage out and die.

As she worked a detective came by and took down Shinji's statement, then gave him a business card to give to his parents.

The MRI finished and, since there was no sign of bruising throughout the brain or along the optic nerves, it was deemed legally acceptable for Shinji to be released.

Back out, into the street. Asuka was waiting for him.

"They wouldn't let me through," she complained, holding the yellow tape up for him to stoop under. "I even said I was family."

His mailbag was slung over her shoulder. He gestured for it, but Asuka shook her head. "I can carry it."

"Thanks," he replied, and walked past her. Pushed into the crowd.

"That was wicked, man!" someone shouted in English. Shinji turned. There was an American in the crowd, his hair spiky with gel. He pumped a fist at Shinji. "Just insane!"

Shinji gave the _gaijin_ a meaningless nod, then pushed through the crowd and into the sidewalk press.

That was wicked, man! Just insane!

"What? What is it?" Asuka was at his side now, fighting to keep pace in the mob.

"Mm?"

"You were screaming. Just now. What was that about?"

"I'm." He was so tired. "I don't want to talk to you right now. Is that okay?"

"Come on, you can't just clam up." Asuka's tone was chastising, then broke into a manic gush. "You just. I saw something that I don't understand. You need to. I need to know what happened. Shinji, there was _ice_ forming on your skin. The only thing that would explain that is... maybe a conductive short in a mechanical prosthetic but. But you don't have one so."

Shinji pushed off the street and down into the train station. Asuka continued.

"I want to help you Shinji. And I need to understand. You need to. You said. In the elevator you said that I was making it happen. How? And then that screen exploded and. And that has to be part of it, right? But. Your skin was freezing cold and then the arcade exploded and neither of those things makes any sense to me."

Into the station lobby. People were glancing at him now. The press was thinner down here. It was easier to notice his injured gait and swollen face.

Asuka continued to trail behind him, trying to talk herself into an understanding. He did not respond to her questions. There was no point. If he told her what he knew, she would not believe him. She would mock him. She was too _smart_ to believe in that sort of thing.

On the train platform now, waiting for 5:40 to Ayase. Asuka was at his side, still talking. Still trying to understand.

The train arrived. The two teens packed in with the rest, Shinji positioned behind Asuka - the train perverts tended to go for the butt. As they braced against the crowd, Asuka noticed the ring.

"Where'd you get that?"

"Makinami gave it to me," Shinji lied. "In Club Sega."

"Was she the one that was dragging you around? I've seen her at school. Why would she give you that?"

Shinji tried ignoring the question. He didn't want the lie to get any bigger. But Asuka was having none of that, and twisted in place until they were face-to-face. Stared.

"She won it earlier, in a UFO catcher" Shinji elaborated. "Didn't want it. Gave it to me."

"She's _branding_ you." Asuka said.

"No," he sighed. "It isn't anything like that, okay?"

"So why... are you dating or something?"

"No, we're not dating. She has a boyfriend."

"Who isn't you."

"I said that, didn't I?"

"So," she glared at the ring like it was offending her, "take it off."

"I can't. I don't want to."

"Why? Its ugly. Cheap green plastic, and what is that symbol supposed to mean?"

"I don't want to talk about the ring. Is that okay?"

Asuka growled. Pinched Shinji just above his hip. "And you don't want to talk to me, either."

"No."

"But you _do_ know who I am now, right?"

"Yes, Asuka."

"You just don't want to talk to me because I saw your penis."

Warmth on his face and he was blind. Seeping pain into the cut on his cheek, seeping bitterness into his mouth. Ah shit. Tears. He was crying.

Couldn't hide it - Asuka had been staring right at him - so Shinji just smiled and said: "I think I'm going crazy."

And for a while, his world was a formless gray blur.

* * *

"Come on," Asuka was saying softly. She had an arm around him, was guiding him toward the exit. "Come on, this is our stop."

Out onto the train platform. He remembered meeting Sohryu for the first time right here. Remembered trying to describe the color of her eyes, and failing. Asuka shepherded him toward the stairs, but he broke away. Sat down on a bench.

"Just. Just a minute," he said, looking down at his cradled hands. "I just. Let me get straight."

* * *

Sanbun Carnival 2018. Forever ago. Him and Ken and Touji stole two bottles of sake from the back of a tent. Drank it under the Takkou Bridge, sitting on the cement incline that ran down to the river. Shinji had done half a bottle himself. Gotten a good solid drunk. All three of them had. It had been fun.

That sense of floating confusion. Cold sweat. Hypnotized by the glare of light off the water's surface. Talking and talking and talking about anything. Having logic and reason swept away by continuous, overriding impulse. Being a puppet for the world to play with. That was what it had felt like.

And that's what Shinji felt now. And that was wrong. It was. This was just in his head. No alcohol involved. It was something he could move past if he just. Focused.

"I'm sorry," Asuka was saying. "I guess this is about the third time I've said it, but. I am, okay?"

She had him in a sideways hug, head on his shoulder.

"I was bored and curious and frustrated," Asuka continued. "And I figured, hey, if you're going to encrypt your story, then I should..."

"I need you to leave," Shinji interrupted.

"Are you going to throw up?" She loosened her hold on him. "There's a trash can right..."

"I need you to go away and leave me alone," he clarified. "Right now. Please."

"I can't just..." she began, letting go of him entirely. Her tone was terse now. "After what happened, I can't leave you alone. I called Yui when you were blanking out on the train, she'll be here in a few minutes and we can..."

"I've had too much of you today," Shinji said in a distant voice. "I can't take anymore. And there's too much. Too many questions. And every time I come close to understanding it, even a little, you ruin my concentration."

A pause. He waited for Asuka to protest. But she did not speak. Nor did she stand.

"Please," he repeated. "Please leave me alone."

And eventually, she did. He didn't watch her go. Just stared at his curled hands and the green ring, trying to make everything fit together.

* * *

"Um."

Shinji wasn't sure how long he had been on the bench when the voice broke in, only that he felt a good deal better. Things had happened. It was fine. He was safe. Every thought to the contrary was being carefully ignored.

By the time he looked up and saw the pale girl standing there, Shinji was more or less back to normal. The only exception was his face, which still hurt - the skin around the cut had taken to twitching on its own.

"Hello," Shinji said, not looking at the girl directly, but knowing who she had to be. "Ayanami, right?"

"Um. Yes."

When nothing further was forthcoming, Shinji let his gaze travel across and up, focusing on a point just over the girl's shoulder. She was wearing a white dress and a yellow wide-brimmed hat, and was holding what looked like a closed black umbrella diagonally across her chest.

"Miss Ikari said I should go get you, because it would be good for me," the girl said in a curious cadence. "But if I become uncomfortable, I can leave and run right back to the street."

Shinji nodded. It was the easiest thing to do. The girl was clearly nervous. She kept looking around and kneading the umbrella, like she expected to use it to fend someone off. Train pervert anxiety, probably.

"Well, we should go then, right?" Shinji stood. Managed a formal smile. "It is nice to meet you, Miss Ayanami."

The girl nodded, then turned away and led him down the stairs and into the street.

Dad's tiny Nissan was idling at the curb. Mom was waiting by it. She was smiling, and quickly closed the distance to sweep Shinji up in a fierce hug.

"I missed you!" she said, pecking him on the cheek. "How has your week been? Hopefully..." She trailed off once she got a good look at him.

"Shinji, what happened to your face?"

* * *

It took a while. Mom wouldn't leave it alone. She leaned against the car, crossed her arms, and demanded an explanation. So he told her about the arcade, and gave her the card the detective had given him.

"Who were you with?" she wanted to know because, of course, it was utterly forbidden for him to go anywhere outside the Ayase area by himself.

"I just went with some friends," he replied. "Okay? I went with some friends, and then I went to an arcade, and one of the machines blew up. A doctor took my insurance and checked me over in one of those mobile clinic... _things_, and then said I could go home."

"And where was Asuka during all this?"

"She went down with us. I guess she knows Touji's girlfriend or something."

"Was she there when the thing blew up? Is she okay?" Mom was looking up and down the street for Asuka, now.

"She's fine, mom. I was the only one that got hit."

"I thought she was going to take you to Ruranguri's tonight," mom said, taking out her phone and thumbing through it.

"Well she..." Wait. "How do you know about that?"

"Her page mentioned it. Anyway," mom clicked the phone shut. "Your face doesn't look too bad, and you say it doesn't hurt?" Shinji nodded. "Well, I still want to run you by Dr. Gawa, just to be sure."

"I'm fine, really. The doctor gave me one of those things." Shinji pointed at his head. "An MRI."

"It'll be quick, twenty minutes at most." Mom was rounding the car now. Apparently the decision had been made. "You haven't seen the old man in a while, anyway."

"I really just want to go home," Shinji said, as he crawled into the car. "I mean," he indicated Ayanami, who had been sitting quietly in the back since coming off the train platform. "What about her?"

"Well, Rei? Would you mind if I dropped Shinji off at the hospital real quick?" mom asked, looking into the rear-view mirror. "We can get something sweet, and then come pick him back up."

"Um, may I have a kiwi custard, please?"

Um. Shinji thought. Um um um.

"We'll go to Roggo's," mom agreed. "They have a bit of everything there." she shifted her attention back to Shinji. "A quick in and out, okay? I set up the appointment while we were talking. You'll be Dr. Gawa's last patient today. So," she shifted the car into drive and pulled into the traffic, "what did you do at Ruranguri's?"

Mom did this all the time. Tell you how it was going to be, then quickly shifting topics so you couldn't backtrack without looking foolish. And if he made a big deal out of this Ayanami wouldn't get her strange custard, either. Shinji did not know the girl at all, but she seemed polite and soft-spoken, if a little strange, and for him that was enough reason to let her have her sweets.

So he was going to the hospital, apparently. Great.

"Well?" mom prompted. What did you do at Ruranguri's?

"Nothing! Asuka sort of talked at me for a while, I guess. About the place and its history, and her family. I guess its sort of cool that her grandmother runs a restaurant..."

"Well, how did you get from there to this Two-El arcade?"

"El-El, or Ls" Shinji corrected, then felt stupid for doing so. "And, well, her grandmother came out and they started talking in German and. They were having this long conversation, and I got bored and sort of. Um. Left."

"She." Mom glanced at Shinji, back to the road, then back to Shinji. "Asuka invited you to Ruranguri's and you got bored and _left_?"

"...no," Shinji admitted, because there was no way mom would not hear about what really happened from Asuka. "I didn't get bored. Things got. I got this headache, and. Mom, the _smell_ in that place, it was like vinegar and spoiled milk." That, at least, was the truth. And something to base a lie around, if Asuka told different.

"Uh huh," mom said. "Well, probably you could have handled that better, Shinji."

"I just... had to get out of there," Shinji repeated.

"That place is _very_ important to Asuka," mom continued. "So you might want to come up with a better reason for suddenly running off before the dinner."

"I don't think we were going to have dinner, mom. I mean, no one waited on us and it was pretty early and..." Oh. Wait. "...and you meant that we're having dinner with the Sohryu's tonight, didn't you."

No. No no no no.

"Tomorrow night," mom corrected. "We're welcoming Rei into the family."

"And the Sohryu's are coming? Asuka is coming?"

"Of course, dear. Rei has to meet them sooner or later, and this will give you all a chance to become friends. You can invite the Suzahara boy too, if you like."

"Uh, mom..."

"And where was little Asuka?" Mom continued. "She called me saying you needed to be picked up. I figured she'd want a ride too."

"Asuka and I sorta. Uh. We had a fight."

* * *

The hospital visit was as brief as mom had promised. Old Dr. Gawa with his bad wit and fading eyesight. Telling Shinji he needed to eat more. Telling Shinji that hips on a boy were a sure sign of homosexuality. And also: telling Shinji that he should have come in a week before, when the wound on his cheek would have still been fresh.

When the old man tottered out the door to run blood work, Shinji went over to the examination room's small hand-sink and checked his face in the mirror.

He had seen the cut back in the ambulance, on the screen the doctor had been using. A red, near-horizontal line maybe three inches long that started just beneath his cheekbone and extended back, close to his ear. The doctor had kept wiping the injury clean, but spots of blood had quickly beaded up here and there, growing heavy and sliding down his cheek. She had actually been able to _spread the cut open_ when she disinfected it, and afterwards she had had to glue it shut.

The cut was just a line of indentation now, and the fresh white-pink of skin that had recently shed a scab. There was no pain in his face at all, not even a lingering tenderness.

But maybe an hour ago it had been bleeding enough to drip down his face and onto the collar of his uniform shirt. Maybe thirty minutes ago, mom had seen it and immediately wanted to take him to the hospital. Now, he was basically looking at a scar, not a wound.

It was the glue, he told himself. The stuff the lady doctor had injected him with.

Modern science was pretty amazing.

* * *

Mom hadn't thought it was the glue. She had given the scar a long, measured look, and then stormed into Gawa's office, leaving Shinji in the hospital lobby with Ayanami.

The girl had brought a small green pig-shaped sweet from Roggo's, the sort with hard chocolate outside and candy foam inside.

"Miss Ikari is very kind," Ayanami said. "She bought me this minted pig and a blueberry pig also, but I am keeping that for later."

"Mmm," was Shinji's response. He was trying to remember how the body healed itself. Cellular division, right? Wasn't unnaturally fast cellular division... cancer?

"Um. She said that this minted pig is mine, but you may have a bite if you like." The girl offered the half-eaten sweet. She had started at the tail and eaten up, so the pig had no hindquarters. It was a halfpig.

"That's okay, Ayanami," Shinji replied, staring at the door mom was going to walk through.

"Miss Ikari says that since we will be living together, that we should, um, call one another by our first names."

A pause. Oh.

"Sure," Shinji said. "Yeah, Shinji is fine."

"So you can call me Rei. Would you like some of blueberry pig, Shin-ji?" She was saying 'blueberry' in English, and it came out 'bu-ru-be-ri'. "He is in the car, but, um, when Miss Ikari comes out and takes us to the car I can get him for you."

"You don't have to do that, Rei," Shinji responded with a sigh. "I'm fine, I don't really... do sweets." Dream-poki had ruined him.

"Oh. Um. I like your ring."

Shinji glanced down at the impossible ring. Tried not to flinch. It had changed shape since the train station. The body was thinner now, and made of a shiny black-or-silver material. The symbol on the face was the same, but now portrayed in lines of raised emerald.

The man with the mask had made this ring from his own. Called the process 'binary fission,' or something. The Doctor had said Shinji needed the ring in order to protect himself and the people around him. The energy inside Shinji was not something he could handle. Until that energy dispersed, he needed to keep the ring close.

But he could take it off and put it in his pocket, or wear it on a string around his neck. The ring's effect was good for fifty feet. Shinji had declined to take it off for Asuka because he was pretty sure she would have chucked it out the train window, and he'd end up...

He slid the band off his finger. Handed it to Rei. "Some friends gave it to me," he said. "Well, I guess they were friends. I don't really like jewelry, though."

Rei had put down her minted pig down and was turning the ring over in both hands.

"Its warm," she said. "Oh, and it glows! Oh, this is neat!" She held it up close to her face, cupping a hand around the face and peering in, presumably to verify that it was, indeed, glowing.

Shinji looked back to Dr. Gawa's office. Anytime, mom...

"I have a ring as well," Rei was saying.

"Oh?" He turned back to her. Forced himself to seem interested. Because really, he _should_ be interested. But he was just. So. Exhausted.

Rei tugged at a thin metal chain that hung around her neck. Shinji had not noticed it before. The chain looped through a simple gold band. Rei pulled the chain awkwardly over her head and handed it, band and all, to Shinji. Then she returned to studying the black-or-silver ring.

Shinji turned the band over, making a polite show of examining it. 'Taekeki + Kaori' was inscribed on the inner band in katakana, along with '2005.' Opposite that inscription was another, which appeared newer and was done in hiragana and kanji: 'To Our Darling Daughter, With Love.'

"I think I like your ring better," Shinji said after what seemed an appropriate interval, offering it back to Rei. "Mine is just tacky."

They swapped rings. Rei mechanically brought the gold band to her lips, then pulled the chain back over her head. Shinji threaded his ring back on and tried to forget about it again.

Quiet. The smell of carpet cleaner and recirculated air. The sound of Rei's clothes as she picked up the minted pig and folded her legs up under herself.

"I like hospitals," she eventually said. "Everything is clean because it has to be and the people there are nice and make you better."

Shinji ground his teeth. Too much at once, again. Too much too often.

"I like them too," he replied, for want of anything else to say. "I had my appendix out when I was 8 or 9."

"Back before I went to live with grandmother, I went to the hospital almost every day," Rei said. "But then I had to go live with her and I got really sick and grandmother said I could not get shots anymore."

Shinji turned and looked at Rei. He had been putting it off, first because he couldn't be bothered, and then because he knew he was in a mean mood and didn't want to sour a first impression that way. But this was all too much. He needed to look, to see. Was this girl for real, or was all this some kind of complicated play for... what? Sympathy?

White hair and white skin. Both were the same, solid color. Like clouds on a bright day. Her eyes were pink and watery, and returned his gaze once she noticed it. A hesitant smile inching across her face. Again, she offered him the green halfpig.

Shinji saw all this, and _recognized her_.

Blood lapping at the shore and something white and pale on the distant horizon. The face of a dead god. Ayanami's face - and not the young, empty face that had watched the soccer game at the Ikari family reunion. It had been Ayanami as she appeared _now_. Something he could not possibly have known last night.

_The universe is vast, and complicated, and ridiculous,_ the Doctor had said. _But everything happens for a reason._

Shinji laughed. It was a short, manic sound.

He reached out. Broke off one of the halfpig's two remaining feet.

It tasted... cold.

But not **cold**.

He managed a real smile.

* * *

Shinji ultimately decided to simply tell Rei that he was tired to the point of exhaustion. That he could, seriously, fall asleep on the bench right that minute and sleep for a day. And because of this, he was not going to be very good company, but he would be more than happy to talk with her tomorrow.

And then, somehow, they had ended up talking for another half hour, until mom _finally_ emerged from Dr. Gawa's office.

"No one injected you with anything, right?" she had asked him.

"I huh?"

"Dr. Gawa or this other doctor," she had glanced to her phone. "Riranke. Neither of them used a needle on you for anything apart from drawing blood?"

"I guess? Both of them used those blister traps. I really don't..."

"Okay," mom had interrupted, snapping the phone shut. "Okay."

She had been mad - furious, maybe - and had said nothing on the ride home, except to answer Rei's questions in a happy, content tone. Rei didn't notice the set of her jaw, or the muted sound of grinding teeth.

And now they were parked in the car alcove. Rei had been sent into the house. Mom had told Shinji to stay, then gotten out her phone and thumbed at it. This went on for a minute or two before she at last said: "You're too smart to use drugs."

"Yes."

"Have you been sharing needles with anyone for any reason?"

"I hate needles, mom. You know that."

"Answer the question directly, please."

"No."

"Has..." and here, mom stammered. "Has Asuka done anything to you lately?"

"What! No!" Mom had her hands up already, making placating motions.

"I know. I'm sorry. Its just. Shinji, something spiked your metabolism in an incredibly selective way, and I'm trying to understand how that might have happened. I was sure it was Gawa, because he has your DNA sequenced and you need that sort of information but." She let her hands drop. Pulled Shinji into a hug. Kissed him on the top of the head.

"I missed you, brat," mom said. "I'm sorry about all this. And I didn't. I didn't mean anything by Asuka. She wouldn't do that sort of thing to you. Even if you did stand her up at Ruranguri's."

"I had a reason," Shinji said as she released him. But they both knew that was beside the point. Shinji wasn't exactly sure _why_ just yet, but yes, he had clearly screwed up there. Even if what happened wasn't something he had any control over. "So, what's with... er. Ayanami?"

"We aren't done here," mom said, her voice becoming stern again. "Gawa is re-sequencing off the blood sample you gave today. You... you might have picked something up we need to remove with therapy."

Asuka and mom were a lot alike. When they had a question that had no easy answer, they had a hard time letting go of it. Shinji supposed that was part of being a scientist.

"I need you to list out everything you did today," mom was saying. "While its still fresh. And the day before, if you can. Actually, going back as far as possible. Where you went, where you ate, who you were with."

Dammit.

"And depending on what Gawa returns tomorrow, we might have to... take additional steps."

It was the ring. The impossible ring that had been given to him in a dream. The Doctor had said it was meant to protect him and those around him. Wasn't much of a stretch to imagine that it could 'spike his metabolism,' or whatever.

Nothing was much of a stretch at this point.

"Now," mom said. "As for Rei... I need that list. I want you to go right to your room and make it up, but as for Rei..."

Mom pursed her lips. Stared through the windshield. Flipped her phone shut.

"I'm sorry I had to spring this on you and your father. But it. It was something I had to do."

"I don't. Er. This isn't. I mean, I think..." Shinji was having trouble articulating this thought because it was, really, an honest surprise. "I think I'm okay with this."

Mom was looking at him now. "I'm glad, Shin. Because I'm going to need your help."

* * *

They went into the house. Dad was in the kitchen. He got up and examined Shinji, and gave the boy's shoulder a comforting squeeze. When it came to science, Gendo Ikari was, at the end of the day, an administrator. He could not get too excited about the mystery of the healing cheek. He saw his son, healthy and annoyed, and was content.

Up the stairs. The storage room - now Ayanami's - was open. Shinji looked inside. There were two large duffel bags by the futon now. There was a some kind of black stuffed animal on the futon itself. Rei was not in the room.

"Ayanami?" he called, walking over to the washroom. "Rei? Can you hold off on the bath? I'm supposed to clean it first."

"Um, Shin-ji?" Shinji turned. Rei was at the top of the stairs. Must have been below the whole time. "Miss Ikari said something about a list...?"

_The first thing, the very first thing. Go up to your room and make that list._

Shinji went to his room. Fished his composition book out from under the bed. Sat at his desk. Worked backward for four days. Meals. Friends. Schedule. The works.

_Next, the house is a bit of a wreck. You and your father both neglected the chores. I'm going to have to give the place a thorough cleaning tomorrow, but tonight I need you to scrub down the washroom so Rei can use it._

Shinji went to the hall closet. Got out the cleaning supplies and a pair of rubber gloves and the mop. Spent 15 minutes in the washroom scrubbing away soap scum from around the drain and making sure the color of the tile was more-or-less uniform.

When he was done cleaning, he spent another few minutes trying to sanitize the room for use by a stranger. The idea had struck him as novel, but was developing into something like an obsessive-compulsive panic. A girl was going to use the washroom. _To wash_.

His soaps with the embarrassing hairs stuck to them were placed in a bucket, which was then placed on the top shelf of the towel rack, along with all his towels and his washcloth. The hamper was pulled out and hidden in the hall closet. His toothbrush was removed.

_After that, I need you to. Well, as a favor to me, could you talk to Rei for a minute or two? Even if its just to say good night._

Rei was downstairs in the living room, sitting on the couch. Dad was there too, fiddling beneath the television with an old _Wii_ system and some other antenna.

"...Old Samurai and Family," Rei was saying. "Came on around eight. With. Um. Kaori Tsumakara and Ridara Hayashibara?"

"And you said the channel was 11, 2b, and then..." dad prompted.

"Um. Two-zero-zero-something. I. I don't want to be a bother. I'm sorry, that's the only station we got."

"_I'm _sorry," dad replied. "That sounds like a pay-licence station. We might not be able to get it tonight."

"I can ask mom if we can borrow her phone," Shinji put in. "That's an old show, it shouldn't be hard to find it online."

"Er, yes," dad said, getting up. "I think I'll go ask her about that, right now."

"What do you mean, that the show is old?" Rei asked as dad left.

"Well, I mean," Shinji stammered. "Re-runs. You're watching stuff that's already been broadcast on the network."

"Oh. Um. Do Tae and Snow get married?"

"I've never actually seen the show. I just remember when the finale happened it was a big deal. Like, three years back?"

"I don't think grandmother knew about that," Rei said. "We watched it every Friday evening. Sometimes, we made sweet rice cakes when we watched. But only on special occasions."

Shinji blinked. Had Rei had just asked him, in roundabout fashion, if he would mind making sweet rice with her?

"Well, we can make sweet rice tomorrow," he offered, "when we, you know, have this party for you."

Rei nodded, looking down at her hands.

Shinji wanted to finish the list and go to bed. He wanted the bitter taste of melatonin and the cool softness of covers. He wanted those things so bad his mouth was watering.

"I think we might have some sweet rice in the pantry," he began...

* * *

An hour. It took him an hour to get away from Rei. There was no sweet rice in the pantry, but they did have the components. So mom and Rei and an increasingly bewildered Shinji had cooked down a batch of sweet rice and watched an episode of Old Samurai and Family that mom had bought online.

Dad, sensing that something girlish was imminent, had already retired for the night.

The show was a pretty dry Meiji period-piece. Shinji would have nodded off before the opening credits had finished if Rei hadn't kept a running commentary about the characters and their various motivations. Mom kept up the other side of _that_ conversation though, thankfully.

And then it was done. An hour just to be nice. Gah.

Shinji was back in his room, sitting on his bed, phone in hand. It was a simple model with a 10-line monochrome display. Didn't even have a camera. Mom said she'd buy him a better one when he actually had a use for it.

For a while he just stared at the phone, exhaustion and drowsiness warping it into a portal to Hell.

_Now listen, we're having this party tomorrow with the Sohryu's and you need to... You said you had a fight, and I guess I shouldn't ask the details but... You need to try and make peace with Asuka. You need to make sure that you two can at least be civil to one another._

It was 8:12. Probably too late. He dialed her number anyway. This and then sleep. This and then sleep.

"What." The voice from the phone was cold, hard, and unmistakeably Asuka.

"Sorry about earlier," Shinji said. "I just needed a..."

"What did I tell you?" Asuka interrupted. "When I came back from America? What. Did. I. Say?"

A feeling in his gut, like he'd been punched. His toes were curling. He started to respond, but Asuka continued, "I was pretty clear at the time, wasn't I? 'If you ever do that again, you'll regret it.'"

"W-what was 'that'?" Shinji responded, utterly failing to keep the stammer out of his voice.

"Leaving me behind. You know, _discarding me_. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter, anymore. It's done."

There was nothing to do but breathe. It was becoming difficult.

"I go over to America and two months in you cut me off. I didn't realize it at first, of course. I sent you e-mails I can't even talk about now."

"I l-left you behind, when you went t-to America?" Was she being serious? Really?

"You ignored me. I guess today you at least had the courtesy to be direct about it."

"Asuka..." Those pictures you sent. The blonde boy... the _yanki_. I had to block you.

"I put myself out there, _again_, and you left me hanging. I mean, what exactly is the point of you, Shinji? Every time I've really needed you, you have let me down."

"I _let you down_? I _left you behind_?"

An exasperated sound on the line. _Yes Shinji, that is a perfectly accurate restatement of everything I just said. Just now. _

"I had something happen to me today that you can't understand, that _I_ can't understand," he said, getting off the bed. "When you were in America, it was either cut you off or become..." Insane. Jealous. "...doesn't matter. I had to do it. You _made me do it_. Both of these times you have made me _need_ to push you away!"

He was pacing. His heart and brain were both telling him to shut up, but these things. What happened in America. It had been pushed down so deep and for so long that it was utterly impossible to control now.

"I don't like you not being... here," he continued. "You're a... constant. But I have... sometimes, its like I have to _protect myself from you_, Asuka."

Silence on the line. How exactly had _she_ needed _him_ today? Just to understand what had happened?

"So today was self-defense," Asuka finally replied, in a flat tone. "And America. That was self-defense too."

He couldn't get into this. He was already stupid with exhaustion. She was not going to listen. She was always, always right.

But. No. What had she said in Akihabara, about her time in America? _I was in love..._

"You left me alone first," he said, and terminated the call.

Immediately regretted it. Petty and stupid thing to do.

But there was nothing for it, now. And he hadn't actually said anything he didn't mean. Didn't stop some of that stuff from surprising him, though. Whatever. It was said. Maybe Asuka wouldn't want anything to do with him anymore.

It would probably be healthier for both of them if that were the case.

He went downstairs and drew a glass of water.

Back in his room, he carefully upended his bottle of melatonin and chewed down five whole tablets, letting the bitter, sandy texture coat his mouth before washing it down with the water.

_Everything happens for a reason_ the Doctor had said.

Shinji lay on the bed, fully-clothed, and waited for sleep.

* * *

Author's Notes:

This is two weeks late. Sorry about that. It took me a while to get a handle on Rei and Yui. T-27 is going to be one chapter long, and I've got most of it planned out, so maybe it will be out in under a month. The chapter following that one will be a week, compressed.

There have been minor revisions to previous chapters, the only of which that is very important is the retconning of the blonde boy in America as a _yanki_ - though if Shinji is using the term correctly is anyone's guess...

Thanks for reading. Review, if you can.

Props to RiddleMeThis for promoting this fic on SpaceBattles.


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